Strippers take counter-protest to church

WARSAW, Ohio, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Tired of church-goers protesting outside their Ohio strip club, dancers clad in bikinis are staging counter-protests outside the church.

The dancers brought lawn chairs and grilled burgers and sat outside New Beginnings Ministries church in Warsaw, Ohio, Sunday, wearing see-through shorts and wielding Super Soakers, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

Dancers waved at passersby, the newspaper said, but pretty much ignored the congregation behind them.

For four years, Pastor Bill Dunfee and church members have gathered on weekends outside the Foxhole strip club in Newcastle, 70 miles northeast of Columbus, denouncing the club and trying to dissuade people from going in. They carry signs club, scream through bullhorns, videotape customers' license plates and post them online.

"[Club owner] Tom George is a parasite, a man without judgment," Dunfee told the Dispatch. "The word of Jesus Christ says you cannot share territory with the devil."

George, whose lawsuit claiming the church violated his constitutional rights failed several years ago, said he felt compelled to respond.

"The great thing about this country is that everyone has a right to believe what they want," George said.

Sunbathing outside the church, Gina Hughes told the Dispatch she has danced at the Foxhole for a decade. Hughes, a 30-year-old married mother of six, said she makes $2,000 a week.

"These church people say horrible things about us," Hughes said. "They say we're home-wreckers and whores. The fact of the matter is we're working to keep our own homes together to give our kids what they need."

Dunfee says he offers the women help: "I tell them, 'I will put a roof over your heads and your bills will be paid and your children's bellies will be full.' Yet they don't come inside."