Group protests Tracy High graduation

God must also hate traffic.

After weeks of buildup, the anti-gay protest by the Westboro Baptist Church almost didn't happen Saturday. The traveling roadshow arrived more than 20 minutes late for its announced 3:15 p.m. protest before the Tracy High School graduation ceremony.

The members were gone 25 minutes later, off for another showdown at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation media awards in San Francisco on Saturday night.

"The traffic is just wild," group spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper said. "You can forget that when you're not around here very often."

Thirteen members of the Westboro church traveled from Topeka, Kan., to protest the Gay-Straight Alliance, a club at both West and Tracy high schools. Westboro members said they were particularly incensed over the case of Richard Thompson, a math teacher at the Institute for Global Commerce and Government, which operates on the West High campus.

Thompson resigned after coming under fire for allegedly making anti-gay comments to students. He has said that his resignation was motivated by a desire to re-enter the technology industry and had nothing to do with his comments or the resulting protests by the GSA.

On Saturday, when the Westboro members finally did arrive, they found a scene where they had been outnumbered since 8:30 a.m. More than 100 counter-protestors had come from all over the Central Valley. People identified themselves as being from Bakersfield, Fresno, Lodi, Manteca, Modesto and Tracy. They represented a number of groups, including two congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Church.

"We wanted to keep it more limited to the Central Valley, to show people that there are supporters in this conservative area," said Jeff Gianelly, a Modesto resident who belongs to the Stanislaus chapter of Marriage Equality California, a pro-gay marriage group. "It would have been easy to get 1,000 people from San Francisco, but that wouldn't have made the point that there is support here."

As people arrived to get early seats for the ceremonies at Peter B. Kyne field, some expressed anti-gay sentiments. None wanted to give their names.

"Just get rid of the gays," an older man said. "How about another continent? How about another planet -- Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus? How about the sun?"

Others said they were nonplussed by the protests.

"I think they just need to go away," said a woman. "Both sides."

Some weren't even aware there was a demonstration planned. This included not only family members from other towns but even some of the green-robed Tracy High graduates who were filtering in. A few, though, were visibly annoyed by what they saw as a spectacle that was taking away from their graduation day.

"I think it's completely ridiculous," said graduate Niki Morales. "It's just two sides that are never going to agree."

Some of the counter-protestors said they were worried at first when the Westboro group didn't show up, saying they didn't want people to think they were protesting the high school or the graduation. Several held signs that said, "Support the Graduates."

"The only reason we're here is because they (the Westboro church) said they were going to show up," said Christina Esqueda of Fresno. "We're here to support the school system that supported the GSA."

When the Phelps group -- not including founder Fred Phelps, the Westboro pastor -- arrived, several passing drivers yelled, "Go away!" Westboro members carried brightly colored signs in combinations of red, white, blue and neon colors that said, "America is Doomed" and various anti-gay slogans.

Several of them trampled on American flags they had placed on the ground. Phelps-Roper said they were protesting a sick country that worshipped the flag as a false idol. She said the red in the flag symbolizes both the blood of aborted children and that of homosexuals engaged in unnatural acts.

When asked who besides the 100 or so members of the Westboro church -- about 70 of whom are descendants or in-laws of Pastor Phelps -- might make it to Heaven, Phelps-Roper said, "only a small remnant."

She added that people need to become aware of "the hateful side" of God.

"These people are delusional," she said about all the people gathered for both the graduation and counter-protest. "If you think this is a discussion or argument, you're wrong. You can't debate with the creator."

Ben Phelps, grandson of the church's founder, said the way for someone to reach redemption is "to do what we're doing." He admitted that the number of converts the Westboro Church had attracted in recent years "could be counted on one hand."

Several police stood between the Westboro group and the counter-protestors, who stayed farther than 50 yards from each other. The Tracy Police Department allotted 30 officers for crowd control, with another six coming from the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department and the California Highway Patrol.

But when all was said and done, the most chaotic thing that happened was that some cars were towed for being left too long in the parking lot of Little Caesar's Pizza, adjacent to the high school. Members of the Westboro church paid a tow-truck driver to keep one of their rental cars from being towed, according to Tracy Police.

Once the Kansas group left, organizers of the counter-protest advised their people to pack up, too, so families wouldn't see them when they were coming out of the graduation.

However, many stuck around a few more minutes, waving at people who drove by and honked their horns. Fresno's Esqueda said most people in Tracy expressed support or ignored them.

She went on to say that even in her city of about half a million, many people are afraid to admit they're gay. She said that's why she shows up for events like the one in Tracy.

"No civil rights movement in the United States has ever failed," Esqueda said. "But most of them have taken a long time."