The Shadow
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – Members of a Kansas church known for picketing soldiers’ funerals celebrated the deaths of 29 coal miners outside Charleston’s largest Catholic church.
Westboro Baptist Church members have been in West Virginia for several days since last Monday’s explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia.
On Sunday, six members of the church stood outside the Basilica of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart holding signs that read things like “Miners in Hell.”
They were met with a much larger body of counterdemonstrators, including miners, gay rights supporters and members of the clergy.
The Westboro group had threatened to picket closer to the mine, but so far has remained in Charleston.
