Western Australian school performance undisrupted by WBC

April 8, 2014

Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) failed to follow through last week on its threats to picket a Western Australian high school's performance of The Laramie Project.

was able to perform the play based on the 1998 beating and death of gay student Matthew Shepard to a sold-out audience undisrupted on last Tuesday night, April 1. The closest WBC came to picketing the school was a tweeted screenshot of a published photograph of the performance which featured a performing student carrying a sign which read "God hates fags" &mdash; the anti-gay catchphrase of the Kansas based extremist group. The school's principle, Andrew Host, who was sceptical of the WBC's threats to picket the school, confirmed to Wikinews the photograph was indeed a student and added "The WBC did not attend the school at anytime during the play production."

On Thursday, the Church renewed its threats to picket the school, saying again via it's twitter account "Is tomorrow when Westboro Baptist will picket Margaret River Senior High School? I think so!" For a second time, WBC failed to appear.

Westboro Baptist Church did not respond to Wikinews requests for comment.

The previous Wednesday, March 26, WBC announced its plans to picket the performance via Twitter, saying "WBC to preach God H8s Fags @ the Margaret River Senior High School — the land of the damned down under." This was followed on Thursday March 27 by another tweet stating the protest would take place on April 2.