New York, USA - Mike Gallagher, a nationally syndicated talk-radio host, turned over 55 minutes of his program yesterday morning to representatives from a fringe Christian group in exchange for a written promise that its members would not picket the funerals of the five Amish girls killed Monday by a gunman inside their Pennsylvania schoolhouse.
Some representatives of the group, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, have contended that the Amish community bears some responsibility for the girls’ deaths as a consequence of its religious practices.
The group said it was also seeking to draw attention to its dispute with Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, who signed legislation this year barring pickets near funerals, a response to the church’s attempts to protest near the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq. The group said the military deaths were a result of God’s disappointment with “the sins of America.”
“The Lord your God is ramping up the issues, is smiting this nation,” Shirley Phelps-Roper, a church representative and a daughter of Mr. Phelps, told listeners of “The Mike Gallagher Show,” in reference to the shootings in Lancaster County, Pa. “What he did with one stroke on that day, sending a pervert in — because America is a nation of perverts — it’s appropriate he sent a pervert in to shoot those children. The Amish people were laid to an open shame because they are a false religion.”
In a telephone interview after the broadcast, Mr. Gallagher, whose program is syndicated by the Salem Radio Network to nearly 200 stations and who is also an on-camera contributor to Fox News, said that while he strongly disagreed with the group, “I’ve never been prouder of this radio show being able to do some good.”