Today Was The Day

Today was the day that the Westboro Baptist Church came to DC. Today was the day that DC met their hatred with love, patriotism, and the power of tolerance and acceptance.

When I arrived at the White House at 11:30 this morning, there was already a small group of GW students gathered, finishing up some signs and passing out lyric sheets. The police came to inform us that, because we didn't have a protest permit, we wouldn't be able to remain on the sidewalk. But as we found out when fifty other people joined us, the sidewalk just wouldn't have been big enough.

Gathered in the streets, our large group waited in anticipation for the Church's arrival as we chose signs and exchanged excited words - the sign I chose said "God Doesn't Hate" on one side, and "We Support The Troops, Why Don't You?" on the other. I had been informed by a friend that the Church's protests were "weak," but I certainly wasn't expecting there to only be seven of them, each of them holding several signs because they had more of those than feet on the ground. They must be so lonely in their hatred.

The members of the WBC began marching up and down the sidewalk - pitifully outnumbered by the anti-circumcision protestors standing a bit down the way - and we began with a chorus of "God Bless America." Some went around collecting money for the Phelps-athon, aptly named after Fred Phelps, the loathsome and predictably dimwitted head of the Westboro Baptist Church, the proceeds of which went towards Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence. At the end of the day, we'd accumulated well over $500. Thanks, Fred!

The chants started, and there were many. 2, 4, 6, 8, DC Doesn't Hate; 2, 4, 6, 8, how do you know your kids are straight; gay, straight, black, white, one love, one fight; J-E-S-U-S, Jesus is Fabulous (a personal favorite), and many more. Mixed in with these chants were the Star-Spangled Banner, Amazing Grace, God Bless the USA, and What The World Needs Now Is Love. Camera crews that had come to record footage of the Church members focused their lenses instead on us, the more powerful of the two groups.

And our group was decidedly more diverse: gay and straight, Democrat and Republican, male and female, every sort of religion, and from various different schools. Someone noted, via megaphone, that only the Westboro Baptist Church had the power to unite so many. In fact, at one point we all paused for a quick prayer service to, in the words of a Catholic GW student, "pray for the souls" of the Westboro Baptist Church. This was followed by cheers of "We Will Forgive You." Maybe.

At a quarter past noon, their time was up, and the Church members began to walk away, typically dragging the American Flag as they went. We followed them, screaming at the top of our lungs, "Westboro go away, we don't want you anyway," and singing Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. Horse-mounted police officers blocked our path, so we stood for several minutes screaming after them as they headed down Pennsylvania Avenue, off to another protest. The fate of that one, I do not know, but this one they lost.

I've been blogging about these hate-mongering induhviduals for quite some time now, and I was only too proud to join a group of people who knew that their hatred is the exception, not the rule, of the American character.

God Bless America

-A^LASKA