The virulently anti-LGBTQ Kansas church, Westboro Baptist Church, is threatening to come to Minnesota this weekend to protest four churches and a high school in Owatonna and to protest the Super Bowl in Minneapolis. The group often lobs threats of protest at communities then fails to show up.

The group says it will protest in Owatonna on Feb. 4 against “sissy, snowflake career preachers” at Bethel Church, Trinity Lutheran Church, St. Joseph Parish, and Sacred Heart Catholic, and against the Super Bowl on the same day which the group considers to be idol worship.

People in Owatonna are pushing back. A group is organizing to create a human wall to block out the protesters. Trinity Lutheran’s pastor, Todd Buegler, in a letter to church members to return love for anger.

If we are protested this weekend by people who only know anger, let’s give them something to protest:
a people who know, experience and live out God’s love every day
a people who are confident in God’s claim on our lives
a people who welcome all into our community
a people who return love for anger
What are we going to do this weekend when Westboro Baptist Church comes to protest?
We are going to be ourselves.

The group last made an appearance in Minnesota last June in Maple Grove drawing a large counter-protest.