Happy thought: love :)
Depending on where you are geographically, it may or may not be news to you that WBC is coming to campus tomorrow. The Westboro Baptist Church, that is. And, for those who still don't know who or what that is, it's a small but incredibly vocal group of individuals under the leadership of Fred Phelps who protest soldiers' funerals and stand on street corners with classy and tasteful signs like "God hates fags" and "God bless dead soldiers." Things like that.
They're coming in the first place because Drake is hosting a symposium regarding the issue of same-sex marriage, which was legalized in Iowa last April. The event itself seems to be a rather standard gathering of civil differences in opinion.
Alas, it caught the attention of Mr. Phelps and his fam, so for about 40 minutes in the early morning tomorrow, our campus (rather, the street across from campus) will be infiltrated with people spewing tactless, vulgar, repugnant, reprehensible, downright vile messages of hate.
You know, I'm a journalist, so I love the first amendment by nature. But... these guys...
Anyway, Drake students weren't too pleased with the news. Not too pleased at all. So, we're exercising our rights, too. We're forming a counter-protest. A peaceful one, of course, to avoid hideous legal ramifications like the father of late Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder who was ordered to pay the WBC's court fees after he sued them for invasion of privacy when they picketed his son's funeral. Nothing short of ridiculous.
So far, I'm really impressed with the level of organization that's being put into this thing. It's entirely student-run; President Maxwell sent out a memorandum a couple of days ago addressing the group's presence and how we should conduct ourselves if we choose to participate in the counter-protest. Drake gets a gold star for this one, I think.
I saw this video a while ago and loved this guy's approach to the WBC. The video caught on all over the Drake network on Facebook, so I believe the plan is to also raise money for local organizations and groups that support the gay and jewish communities (they're also hitting a couple of synagogues after they're done at Drake). A couple of kids had some t-shirts made, the proceeds of which are also going to these organizations.
I'm really interested to see how all this plays out. I've heard before that a couple of times the WBC didn't even show up to protest. Personally, I haven't yet decided if I'll go to the counter-protest. I did, however, buy a shirt (which is really cool - it's the state of Iowa and on it it says "Anything hate can do, love can do better") since the profits were going to worthy causes. Shouting back and forth at the WBC for 40 minutes doesn't seem like it'll do much good, and I mostly think they WANT people to get this riled up about them. They WANT this kind of attention, so part of me thinks the best way to handle them is to not handle them at all.
That and I'm not sure I can be in the presence of evil without throwing up. And I really hate throwing up.
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