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Sunday Happenings
Bostonist reader Kim Lucas reports on witnessing Westboro Baptist Church's anti-gay protest (and the counter-protest) at Cambridge Rindge and Latin school Friday afternoon. Phelps and the WBC will be returning to Boston on March 20 to protest at East Boston High School.
Cambridge Rindge and Latin, you made me proud yesterday.
Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church kicked off their weeklong Boston area tour Friday (the thirteenth!) with a visit to Cambridge's only public high school. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Phelps' group, they are a hate group based in Topeka, KS and are known for touring the nation (and other nations) with their sidewalk protests against all acts they classify as "sin." Homosexuality tops their sin list (no pun intended), and that's what their Boston tour is all about. They had heard that Reading High was doing a screening of the Laramie Project, and that is supposedly where they were headed following Cambridge—after, of course, doing a few protests in Lexington as well.
Since the WBC announces its events in advance, Rindge and Latin student organizations and Cambridge community members were able to come together in a joint effort to counter-protest the presence of this group on their campus and in their city. Young people and adults alike came together to spread their response: there's no room for hate in Cambridge.
Friday's events kicked off at 10:30 a.m. with community members congregating in Joan Lorenz park with signs, music, and a bullhorn. Community members paraded to the rear entrance of the school, where Cambridge police had thrown up barricades to ensure that protesters and counter-protesters remained in separate areas. At 11:10am, the school's "A" lunch commenced and students, who had heard announcements about the counter-protest, joined the community members and flooded Cambridge Street with their presence. Even Mayor Denise Simmons was in attendance to lend her support to the students and the community. The WBC showed up a bit after the time they had announced, and the counter-protest crowd grew in the meanwhile. When the WBC arrived, all five of them, they were (un)welcomed by an estimated 500+ crowd.
The WBC protest lasted approximately 25 minutes, with the counter-protest going strong all the while. WBC members held signs, some of which were expected (e.g., "God Hates Fags") and some of which were just confusing (e.g., "You Eat Your Kids"). Students and community members chanted various protest chants ("We're here, we're queer, we're not going anywhere"), and a sign showing just how much the students had fundraised via the Phelps-a-Thon was held and update throughout. The 25 minutes of WBC presence proved quite disturbing, not only because clearly such hateful people still exist, but also because there was a small child with the group, who, at one point, was stomping on the American flag while holding a "God Hates Fags" sign. Not cool in so many ways.
The counter-protest didn't disband until the WBC left and then some. It was amazing and uplifting to see how such a diverse community (of all sexual orientation, races, ethnicities, and ages) can come together for a common cause and with a common message. Walking away from Friday's events, I thought to myself, "Fred Phelps, don't mess with Cambridge."
To see more pictures of the protest and the counter protest, check out Kim's Flickr page.
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The support shown by the Cambridge community is so great for a number of reasons. The reason I say this is because a friend of mine died recently. This friend was the pilot of Flight 3407 that went down in Buffalo, New York. Captain Marvin Renslow was a member at my church and I was particularly close to his son. The connection his death has with WBC is that the WBC group attended his funeral to protest the fact that our church was “worshipping a dead guy.” They claimed that our pastoral staff was only giving statements (begged by the media) due to the fact that our pastors wanted attention. They also called our church (First Baptist Church of Lutz) First Baptist Doghouse of Lutz, a whorehouse, and claimed that we had no right to call ourselves a church. The fact that the WBC group was coming to the funeral of someone that I knew and respected and could call “friend” was extremely upsetting and stirred up feelings of anger. It was frustrating to think that these people that find themselves in the right were going to attend the funeral, as if they were poisoning the very sanctity and preciousness of the moment. Many people have attended a funeral, and as unfortunate as those occasions are, most do not see it as an opportunity to “worship a dead guy.” It was extremely offending, and horrifying that the WBC group felt that they had the right to interrupt such a sacred time for the grieving family and friends.
It was also somewhat confusing that WBC considered our pastoral staff “attention craved”, while WBC travels all over the country and on occasions of the country to protest their beliefs, constantly getting on the news or having articles such as this written about them. This article, however, was one of the more positive ones where WBC was one of the featured topics. This one was more focused on the way a community that would usually be divided came together to stand up against people that look at the world in a cruel and one-sided way. They are appalling, and it is so great, that even in the midst of great difference, a community can come together and stand up against the people trying to divide our nation further.
Yay for Gay! Boo for those WBC peeps who have no love at all :-(
This documentary on Phelps' clan is quite enlightening:
http://www.atheistnation.net/video/?video/00260/atheist/the-most-hated-family-in-america/