Westboro Baptist Church Won't Picket Christina Green Funeral

The controversial Westboro Baptist Church has announced that it will not picket the funeral of the 9-year-old girl killed in Saturday's shooting.

It's not entirely a show of unexpected compassion, however. Westboro Baptist Church scrapped initial plans to protest at Christina Green's funeral in exchange for airtime on radio stations in Phoenix and Toronto.

The group still plans to send a handful of members to picket at the funeral of U.S. District Judge John M. Roll, despite emergency legislation passed by Arizona to ban such protests at memorial services. The new law was passed soon after Westboro announced that it would show up at the funerals of people killed in the deadly Tucson shooting. The church members say the law won't stop them because they'll be more than 1,000 feet away.

They also plan to protest near the Safeway grocery store where the shooting took place.

Other members of the church will be in Washington, D.C., to picket at the memorial service for American diplomat Richard Holbrooke.

Westboro Baptist Church has long courted publicity by holding small, high-profile protests meant to shock. Surge Desk rounds up some of the funerals they've picketed:

Elizabeth Edwards, estranged wife of politician John Edwards
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, which led to a Supreme Court case and the formation of the Patriot Guard Riders, a group of motorcyclists who crank their bike engines to drown out church members
Matthew Shepard, a gay man murdered in Wyoming in 1998
Fred Rogers, best known for his work on the children's show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood"
Evangelical leader Jerry Falwell

More Surge Desk coverage on the Tucson shooting:
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Bill Maher Calls NRA "Assassin's Lobby" [VIDEO]
'Blood Libel': A Brief History of the Phrase Palin Used in Her Video
Making Sense of Palin's Media Strategy for the Giffords Shooting
Sarah Palin Talks About 'Blood Libel' in Giffords Shooting Video
Jared Loughner Mug Shot Released
Judy Clarke, 'Unabomber' Lawyer, Will Represent Jared Lee Loughner
Jared Lee Loughner's World View; A Conspiracy-Theorist Primer [VIDEO]
Poll: Was Sarah Palin Crosshairs Imagery Inappropriate?
Do Palin and the Tea Party Bear Any Responsibility for the Giffords Shooting?

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