Pine-Richland citizens stage counter protest of Westboro church group

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

About 70 Pine-Richland community members and others counter-protested a staged demonstration of three Westboro Baptist Church members Friday morning outside PineRichland High School.

Westboro, known for its anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, inflammatory signs and protests at funerals for fallen soldiers, targeted the school amid the controversy over the school district’s policies pertaining to transgender students’ use of bathrooms.

Friday’s protesters, forbidden on school property, stood along Warrendale Road at the edge of the high school campus.

Classes remained on a normal schedule and local police were on hand as a precaution.

The protesters disbanded after about an hour.

In fall 2016, the PineRichland school board adopted a policy that restricted students to using either unisex bathrooms or bathrooms that match their biological gender. Three students sued the district and reached settlements this year.

And in February, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Hornak ruled that Pine-Richland’s policy was discriminatory and the school board rescinded the policy in July.

Considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Westboro Baptist Church links the deaths of military members to an acc e p t a n c e of LGBTQ rights, and claims the deaths happen because of God’s wrath.

The Kansas-based group has been the subject of free speech debates in recent years.

In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled the church’s speech and picketing of funerals were protected under the First Amendment.

Representatives of Westboro staged a protest Thursday near Carnegie Mellon University, where they were met by students who acted as a buffer between Westboro members and the campus.