Schools Take Steps to Defuse Anti-Gay Group's Protests

Faced with demonstrations by anti-gay extremists, administrators at schools in the Baltimore and Washington areas worked with law-enforcement officials and took other steps in advance to maintain a peaceful environment for students and faculty members last week.

Members of Westboro Baptist Church, classified as a hate group by the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, picketed on roads near but not on school property at Fairfax High School in Fairfax County, Va., as well as on roads near Towson High School in Towson, Md., on March 30, denouncing those schools’ gay-straight alliances and diversity groups.

The Topeka, Kan.-based church has also announced plans to demonstrate at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., on April 24 because the famed poet the school is named for is widely thought...