SIMMONS: Westboro Baptists planning protests in D.C.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Woodrow Wilson Senior High School, of Northwest Washington, meet the Westboro Baptist Church, of Topeka, Kansas.

Be cool now.

Westboro is fired up and ready to take on Wilson, the Pentagon and home-going services for Maya Angelou.

Tempers and rhetoric easily could get out of hand at two events Monday, when Wilson is scheduled to hold its second annual LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Questioning) festival at lunchtime.

This won’t be a lunchtime brawl over first lady Michelle Obama’s push for healthy school meals, though there will be a fight over feeding the soul.

Westboro is planning to take its God-don’t-like-gays road show not only to Wilson High on Monday, but also to the Pentagon, where the might of America’s military will come face-to-face with Baptist warriors.

We know who would win such a battle.

Westboro Baptist Church is best known for its notorious gay-ain’t-right religious stance and dishonorable demonstrations at military funerals.

In addition to trying to raise Cain at Wilson High and the Pentagon, Westboro has said it plans to protest at the funeral of poet/memoirist Maya Angelou, the human rights advocate who died last week.

No final arrangements — for the funeral or the protest — had been announced at press time.

An independent church, Westboro has no official affiliation with the storied Southern Baptist Convention (thank the heavens and the ancestors).

Babies teaching babies

With all due respect to Dr. Benjamin Spock, babies don’t come with textbooks, even though many prospective moms and dads scour books about infants and toddlers before their little bundles arrive.

Well, now the learning is going on inside the classrooms via babies-teaching-babies programs at schools in California, Scotland, D.C. and elsewhere.

Roots of Empathy is a two-decades-old program out of Canada that recently crossed the border and landed in the nation’s capital, where kids at Maury Elementary on Capitol Hill and other schools get to explore babies’ emotions.

The goal is to help youngsters keep themselves in check while considering the actions of others.

It’s way too early to start thinking about an endgame for these Roots, especially considering the fact that this “learning tool” might begin encouraging boys and girls to produce their own personal instructors.

Babies having babies.

In the interim, consider Westboro Baptist Church members trying to overcome the roots of the Pentagon, Wilson and Angelou.

The church will surely get press coverage, and maybe some of its members will even be arrested here or there.

But Roy G. Biv is here to stay.

• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.