Channeling Mo - *Or my "I have finally lost it!" political rant!

All right. For a blog with so much activism going on in it, I rarely really crank up with a political rant or post. Tonight, however...
Meet Mo - pictured here to my left. Mo is the central character in a cartoon series by Alison Bechdel, graphic comic artist and author of the comic series Dykes to Watch Out For (which maybe found here in her Archives. Shameless plug aside ( I really, really LOVE Alison's work, seriously) her character Mo has this habit of going off on political rants in fury at the stupidity of the establishment. And I have been channeling Mo since last night. Settle in for a long post - with fireworks - that goes down several different but inter-connecting paths. Go get your popcorn.
It all started when we were listening to Dreamweaver's favorite alternative radio program Phoenix Rising and he brought up whats going on in the Georgia court system right now. Basically, there have been several attempts via the court system to establish that Barrack Obama is not eligible for re-election for President and to therefore exclude him from the ballot.

(Now. Caveats. Before I go another step with this post. Obama is not perfect. Neither is he Satan incarnate. This is not a blog post about Obama. This is a blog post about some frighteningly scary ignorant politcal maneuvering by persons or people that I am going to *TRY* my best not to use foul language about in the course of this post. I cannot promise to succeed. I have no problems with you, gentle reader if you are not for Obama. But seriously - whats going on here folks is insane. Be forewarned. I will seriously police comments on this post, something I have never done before. All honest opinion welcome, even if it differs from mine. If you're trolling, your comment will be removed - as in take off and nuke it from orbit removed - its the only way to be sure. We now return you to this post. I really am in a mood. Sorry folks.)

So, when I heard about this court case, I went and looked it up, wondering by what technicality they thought they had grounds for this case. OK, yes, I am naive. I'm cute, but naive. In the extreme. Remember - well, its never gone away, but - remember the whole "Birther" movement, wherein President Obama's birth certificate and citizenship came into question?
During the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential primaries, anonymous e-mails from supporters of Hillary Clinton surfaced that questioned Obama's citizenship in an attempt to revive Clinton's faltering primary election campaign. These and numerous other chain e-mails during the subsequent presidential election circulated false rumors about Obama's origin, religion and birth certificate.
Jim Geraghty of the conservative website National Review Online may have sparked further speculation on June 9, 2008, when he asked that Obama release his birth certificate. Geraghty wrote that releasing his birth certificate could debunk several false rumors circulating on the Internet, namely: that his middle name was originally Muhammad rather than Hussein; that his mother had originally named him "Barry" rather than "Barack"; and that Barack Obama, Sr. was not his biological father, as well as the rumor that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen.
In October 2009, anonymous e-mails circulated claiming that the Associated Press (AP) had reported Obama was "Kenyan-Born". The claims were based on an AP story that had appeared 5 years earlier in a Kenyan publication, The Standard. The rumor-checking website Snopes.com found that the headline and lead-in sentence describing Obama as born in Kenya and misspelling his first name had been added by the Kenyan newspaper; and did not appear in the story issued by the AP or in any other contemporary newspaper that picked up the AP story. And so the snowball rolled until it became an avalanche of rumor, counter rumor, debunking sites, "Birther" sites ("Birther" being the term for those who believe that President Obama was not born in the United States.) and endless conjecture.

Now, we - Dreamweaver and I have done some serious research on this. Every single rumor, photo-shopped foreign "birth certificate", fake news story and claim has been debunked. Over. And over. And over. And still the Birther movement will not die. Its worse than trying to stake vampires! This by the way affects me personally - my beloved Father, whom I have such a loving but tangled relationship with is a Birther. He loathes Obama and believes every negative rumor ever put out there. So this hits me very personally. My dad and I are at the point where we are very careful to talk about the weather and neutral subjects. Or at least I am, and try very hard to keep him off politics. Even he has been proceeding more gently with me on it. I think he knows on a certain level how painful it is for me to hear all this coming out of him, even if he doesn't understand why. And given how hard headed he is, that's saying something!

Scanned image of Barack Obama's
birth certificate released by
his presidential campaign in June 2008.

What this all leads up to is...when I checked on the news story about the court case in Georgia subpoenaing Obama regarding possible ineligibility, I - naively - was looking for something new, given that the Birther   stuff has been so incredibly discredited. I mean - President Obama released his birth certificate on June 12, 2008, responding to the rumors by posting  an image of Obama's birth certificate. As if it hadn't already been settled at the very beginning before any of this started by the rigorous back ground checks that occur when one seeks the office of President. Gah! So...what do I find when I go to check on the Georgia court case????

Oh yes...the Birthers are at it again. Did I mention I am naive? My jaw dropped. Here's the story -  a Georgia resident made the complaint, which is intended to keep Obama’s name off the state’s ballot in the March presidential primary. The reason - oh yes - the tired old thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory of President Obama not being a US citizen.  The kicker is the lawyer they retained to represent them...Orly Taitz. Oh. My. God. Orly Taitz is a Moldavian emigrant to the US who became a naturalized citizen in 1992. She has a law degree from Taft, and was admitted to practice law in California in December 2002. She also speaks five languages: English, Hebrew, Romanian, Russian and Spanish, as well has having a dental practice. So she obviously is intelligent. She also claims that she lost relatives in the Holocaust and that her grandmother witnessed the Kishinev pogrom.

None of which prevents her from being, insofar as I can tell, crazier than a bedbug, evidently.

Along with spear heading and leading the Birther movement, and claiming that President Obama is not a US citizen and a Radical Muslim (which is he is not - he is a Christian, albeit progressive and pluralist) she also claims such things as a number of homosexuals from Obama's former church have died mysteriously (which has what to do with what???), that a person who was cooperating with the FBI in connection with Obama's passport died mysteriously, "shot in the head" (didn't happen); that a Kenyan birth certificate with the name "Barack Obama" is authentic (and we're coming back to that one, in a moment folks!), that her life and

Orly Taitz

property has been threatened and vandalized by the government, that internment and labor camps are being built for "anti-Obama Dissidents" - they're not - and that Osama bin Laden was killed years ago, with his body kept on ice, and the announcement of his death was timed to divert attention from an upcoming court case she is litigating challenging Obama's citizenship - oh my aching head. Really? Seriously? She also has other theories such as a strain of bird flu deliberately developed to kill people, PayPal attacks, the deletion of her Wikipedia entry (which was right there when I went to look for it) , and Google's flagging her webpage as an attack site and suppressing search results for her name - which is a joke because she's all over the damn internet in all directions...as in, oh, about 713,000 results when I last checked. Its called a persecution complex at the least. And by all means - go look at her suppressed, flagged, non-existent Website, please. 

Anyway, she's the lawyer representing the case in Georgia. She's already tried this in Alabama, New Hampshire - both of which were thrown out by the way - as well as litigation for military personal who challenged orders implementing his voluntary deployment to Afghanistan because of his claim that Obama is not a legitimate president and thereby could not order his deployment. She has numerous other cases - all of which have been dismissed and thrown out, and she has been sanctioned and fined 20,000.00 dollars for for deliberate misconduct in court. 

Now, remember the "Kenyan Birth Certificate" I said we'd get back to? Here's the icing on the cake. In 2009 Orly presented a photograph of Barrack Obama's Kenyan Birth Certificate.

 

This turned out to be a proven forgery of an Australian man's certificate of birth posted on an ancestry research site that was lifted and photo-shopped. It had so many glaring errors on it that it boggles the mind that anyone could take it seriously or think they could prove it genuine - errors such as incorrect ages, questionable birth locale, and unbelievably and most glaringly, the use of the term "Republic of Kenya", when actually at the alleged date of issue on this document, it was actually known as the "Dominion of Kenya" on official documents. Orly Taitz is too smart - one would think - to weaken her position as champion of the Birthers by attempting to present such a weak forgery, particularly when a few minutes of research would have turned up the discrepancies before attempting to go public with it. Evidently intelligence was not enough to prevent out right idiocy on this one. 

Now, having pretty much - I sincerely hope - proven my point on Ms. Taitz, which is that she's approaching delusional in this mess and should not be taken seriously....

Here's where my jaw hit the floor last night and put me into a serious rage. So, we were listening to the radio show last night, found out that Orly Taitz is at it again in Georgia...attempting to legally keep President Obama off the ballot for re-election, and attempts to subpoena him...AND THE JUDGE UPHELD THE SUBPOENA AND ENFORCED IT. 

A lawyer representing President Obama's interests submitted a letter - they probably have a form letter file a mile long by now to deal with Orly - stating that Obama's legitimacy has been clearly proven legally at the highest level, and they would not be responding to this nuisance case, etc. And the Judge upheld the subpoena ruling anyway and filed for Taitz and crew! 

What. The. Hell?!?!

Phoenix, our radio dude went on to point out to his listeners that this could seriously become major trouble, because just as obviously as the President cannot respond to nuisance lawsuits, particularly ones that have about as much legal precedence as a snowball in hell, if the judge upheld the plaintiffs side, it becomes a Civil Rights/States Rights issue and the rallying cry from that could become very ugly indeed. At the very least, if it truly carried all the way through, it would set a precedence of excluding President Obama from the ballot which would spread from state to state in the Deep South and that could result in the government stepping in, civil unrest and possible riot and mayhem. 

Pepper spray during Occupy Protest

Still with me here? Because we're about to take another turn down how my night went last night. Having heard the above, I became sincerely upset. Um...actually, in a furious rage to be honest. How dare such idiots play this kind of game with political due process in such a serious situation! You think I'm exaggerating? You think Phoenix is exaggerating? Remember, we've just seen the Occupy Movement get gassed, discredited and smashed into the bedrock by what amounts to brownshirt goons - you really think this could be an exaggeration? Let me go one step further. 

I was very upset last night about this whole thing. Sleep kind of went out the window, and I was sort of compulsively patrolling the internet chasing random searches on all this mess. So having thought about the States Rights thing, and gone chasing down several related posts to those things, I went and looked at THE main back history to the whole idea of States rights in America - The American Civil War of 1861–1865. Or as I grew up hearing it referred to - and I am NOT kidding - The War of Northern Aggression. 

Confederate Flag on t
he Capitol Grounds. 

I was raised in the deep South. I am by birth South Carolinian. I grew up with Rebel Battle Flags EVERYWHERE...including the one still flying on the capitol grounds today. I was taught that the Civil War was about STATES RIGHTS...that the Federal Government wanted to take away our freedoms, that slavery was not nearly as bad as it is fictionally portrayed (Really. I was taught that.), that freeing the slaves actually did them harm and that the war was never about slavery - that was just an issue introduced half way through as an emotional rallying cry. The phrase "The south will rise again" was not uncommon, Sherman's name is still hated here, and the phrase "damnyankee" was one word. And the Klu Klux Klan was just there to protect the women and children. All the classic cliches that you think could not be true about Southerners....well. They are. They were. That's what I grew up in and around the first half of my life. How in God's name I escaped being an emotionally blind bigoted bastard I will never know, but thanks be to God - and I MEAN that - somehow I did. I was taught to be proud my state fired the first shot that started the whole freaking blood bath. And it was a blood bath - that war produced about 1,030,000 casualties (3% of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease. It accounted for roughly as many American deaths as all American deaths in other U.S. wars combined. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males in the United States aged 13 to 43 died in the Civil War, including 6% in the North and 18% in the South. (Don't know what the figures would be if other races and women and children were included in that.) 

Its funny how when you're sure of what you think you know, you never really dig in and look at it until something else knocks the blinders off. Now, I was already totally disgusted with the whole "slavery wasn't all that bad, and emancipation actually harmed the slaves" thing...Naive I may be - Stupid I am not. But I did believe that the Civil war was about States Rights, and the evils of the Federal Government.  Its what I was taught in school and at home and at church and rubbed off on me at social gatherings. What else was I to know, when that was all I had ever been taught. Until last night, sore and angry and worried about my country's troubles at the hands of some crack pots and conspiracy theorists, I turned and did some true unbiased digging for the first time ever about the whole States Rights "movement" that arose out of the Civil War.

Rare 1863
photograph of a slave 

Oh, yes, it was about States Rights alright. The right to own slaves and continue the furtherance of slave ownership into newly opened territories of America after slavery had already been declared illegal everywhere except the specific slave states and the actual slave trade coming over seas had been criminalized. And for THIS my ancestors rose and fought one of the bitterest, most brutal wars ever, brother against brother, that generated the hatred, prejudices and resentments that still burn today in the deep south...for the right to own and enslave their fellow human beings. And because of this cultural myth that still is alive and well today - that the Federal Government is out to "get us" Southerners - we're primed for it already. Armed conflict and rebellion is romanticized in the name of that lie still. And when this legal circus that is being driven by the Birther's disproven fraudulent claims  to exclude Obama from the Presidential ballot in the states gets tossed out and quashed like it should be...its not impossible that civil unrest and blood could erupt in the streets.

Oh yes. If this Birther movement to exclude Obama from the ballot continues, with the Occupy debacle behind us - and the Occupy movement will be cranking back up when warm weather gets here, is my bet - it could well explode. I am not being paranoid. You saw the news this summer with the Occupiers being beaten, dragged off, pepper sprayed and gassed. We're poised over the edge. And the Deep South is where this will erupt if it does and we're living smack in the middle of it. God help us.

I guess the final reason for my severe rage was that every single conspiracy theory, crack pot claim, and bitter foul lie about President Obama that Orly Taitz is pushing or has created, I've heard from my father's lips as gospel truth. And he knows, despite my care not to start anything or even get involved in any political discussion with him, he knows that I disagree with him on this subject. And he thinks I am blind to reality and that he knows it all. It hurts. Orly Taitz's single handed insanity has brainwashed my dad into twisted knots of conspiracy theories and hatred and there is nothing I can do about it. Not one thing. I asked my dad what he thought, the day President Obama's birth certificate was released, and he said as far as he was concerned it was a fake, the man was no US citizen, but a Kenyan born Muslim who should be run out of the country and that even if he held Obama's birth certificate in his hand, he still wouldn't believe it, period. And this is why, perhaps I am so blazing mad. These lies have come close to destroying my relationship with my father, and have twisted what should be golden years for him into something filled with fear and hate because he is afraid of change and its easier to hate than think. It breaks my heart and has made me angrier than anything has in a long time. I am trying not to misuse that anger and succumb to hate myself. So I'm venting about it, and trying to wrestle with it and win through to being better than this.

Two final points. Orly Taitz is working on running for Senator for the state of California. Oh no. Hell no! Please God, no. She has to be un-electable. Unfortunately, her being born somewhere other than the USA doesn't preclude her from holding any office except the presidency. How ironic.

Secondly, today in court instead of tossing out the case in Georgia, the court stunningly refused to rule, meaning he did not toss them out on their asses - yet. Instead,they are to present their evidence, and he will make a ruling by February 5th, and where this will lead next, who knows. Hopefully he will toss it out. We'll see. I can't imagine he wouldn't. Here's hoping.

These are my honest thoughts. Perhaps venting here will give me the ability to see clearly and not be so blind furious. Perhaps the future will be better than my fears, will instead, be the future of my hopes. Such are my prayers this night.
May God give us grace. All of us.

Counter Protest - Fourth and Final Part...

Prophet H. Walker is questioned regarding True Light Pentecostal Church's picket permit.

A final post on the Counter Protest to Westboro Baptist Church's scheduled picket of the screening of Anatomy of Hate...

As we now know, Westboro Baptist Church was a no - show, though we happily went ahead with our counter protest. However, there were evidently some individuals who showed up in SUPPORT of Westboro, which is something I have never heard of occurring before. Not to say it hasn't, but I sure have never heard of it, or seen pictures of any other church or organization ever supporting or turning out to join Westboro's infamous hate filled picket lines. Until this past Monday. 

True Light Pentecostal Church  showed up with eight people to support Westboro.“We're protesting because we're against these rallies that the sodomites (and) lesbians have. We're trying to show another side of America — the true side of America,” said Prophet H. Walker, overseer of True Light.


One wonders if they even understood the original reasoning Westboro scheduled to turn out? The Phelps picketers scheduled their protest to oppose Anatomy of Hate; Dialogue of Hope because it, rightfully so, identifies them as a hate group, not as a direct protest of anything GLBTQ related. True Light's statement referring to our counter protest as a rally of sodomites and lesbians is utterly ludicrous, given that the percentage of GLBT in the crowd of students was actually very low - most were straight, and a fair amount were both GLBT and straight identifying Christians. Also, based on all the photographs and information I have been able to turn up, True Light appears to be an African American Church. Anatomy of Hate opposed racism of the most virulent sort - the Aryan movements that would despise and seek to destroy a church like True Light. Over all, this very much boggled my mind. True Light, it must be pointed out, does have mission projects that house and feed the homeless and the hungry, and despite their extremely conservative stance on scripture, appear to be a positive influence in their venues.

It was still disturbing to realize that my area of the world produced a picket line in support of Phelps and Westboro's virulent hate message, particularly since it was obvious that they had not truly researched what they were protesting in actuality. It kinda blows my mind, actually. 

I also learned that money was raised based on the public's counter protest! The money, totaling $550.00, went to  Piedmont Care, a local AIDS non profit advocacy organization and for Upstate Pride, the local organization for the Gay Pride in this area. This is excellent. So...lets see...a hundred or so students on the campus counter protesting, a hundred or so counter protesters from the local community and surrounding colleges also taking a stand, a packed out showing of Anatomy of Hate, funds raised toward two excellent organizations, Westboro was a no show, and even though it disturbed me that they showed at all, only eight very mistaken picketers for Westboro. 

All in all...I am proud of my community and very glad to have been a part of it that Monday night! 

Counter Protest Part Three...

So, what then, why then, do we kill? Why do we hate? Why do we do these horrible things to ourselves as a self aware sentient species? The Documentary explored this – that we are very much wired for survival by our evolutionary heritage. Our Limbic systems are wired for survival, for finding food, for procreation, for fight or flight. However, as self aware intelligent species, we have the capacity for Love, for culture, for science, for learning, for growth beyond imagining – we imagine. And we also Hate.  Carl Jung’s idea of the Shadow self that we are uneasy with, the dark, survival oriented, aggression that is in all of us – we perhaps project it outward – no, not me, I can’t be like this – he’s the demon, he’s the bad guy, he is the focus for all my aggression…I am good, I am saved, I am superior. And when we are told that we are threatened by the Other, when we are told that the Other are monsters, we hate. We damn. We kill.

So, what about the other half of the documentaries title – “Dialog of Hope”? Where in all these gory, pitiless, nightmare scenes does the Hope come in, when does dialog start?  

The Israeli/Westbank has a growing number of Israeli and Arabs who have withdrawn from the armies and the insurgents, and have begun to sit down and talk. The call themselves Combatants for Peace. They are dialoging. They are discovering that there are no demons, only people who have been trapped in this cycle and that there is a better way out – they have begun a school for Israeli and Arab children together, so that they can play together and learn together and grow up without hate and talking to each other and finding their best friends among each other.

The US troop who lost one of their members to the Iraqis, later found themselves teamed up together in a mission against Al Qaeda with the very men who had most likely killed their buddy. It was hard going, but they sat down and talked and slowly realized that they we all people, more alike than different, able to talk, able to understand that they did not have to hate each other, that they both had friends who had died because they were caught in the machinery of war, but they did not personally wish anyone to die or to kill each other. And they became friends and teammates together.

The Westboro Baptist Church founder, Fred Phelps has a stunning unknown past. He was a Civil Rights Lawyer who in the 60’s took on many Civil Rights cases for the black community and won. He is honored by the NAACP. During that time, he and his family were called nigger lovers and suffered abuse at the hands of the community, as he fought the Jim Crowe laws.

And then there in the movie, there is the story, in his own words in an interview, of the White Supremacist who went into a gay church to plant a bomb on a Sunday morning which would have killed close to 100 people. He sat there, in the service, brief case in hand with the bomb…and looked around and thought, these are people just like me. They are here to be close to God, just like I do at church. How can I do this? And he turned to his buddy who was with him…and said, “Come on. Let’s go.” And walked out, taking the un-triggered bomb with him.

 When we stop projecting hate, when we stop listening to rhetoric that says “Any one different is a monster, is not like me, I must hate them, I must kill them”, when we start talking to people and beginning that dialog, that discussion and see the person as another human being, more alike us than different from us, the cycle of fear and aggression and hate begins to break. It does not mean that we must AGREE with each other, but that we can disagree without making the other into an enemy to focus our hate on. I cannot agree with Shirley Phelps Roper…everything she stands for is anathema to me, as I am sure I am to her. But I can look past it, and not hate her, and see instead a human being just like me. Not a monster, but one with pain, and inner struggles that have landed her where she is. And I can take a peaceful stand against what she believes, wearing a shirt that says “Love is…” instead of Hate. Hate is easy. Love and dialog are harder. Both are learned. And dialog is our hope and our salvation.

It was an amazing night, all told, with the counter protest and the incredible turn out, and getting to actually hear and speak to Mike Ramsdell (you betcha I got the DVD autographed!) and seeing this amazing Documentary.  In the end, the fact that the Westboro Baptist Church and their picket weren’t there became irrelevant. What we came together and shared became so much bigger, and I suspect many of my classmates and fellow students left that documentary and that event with their lives changed.  I am honored to have been a part of it, and frankly…

Westboro, we're sorry you weren’t there…you missed something really amazing. 

We missed you! 

The Counter Protest Part One...

So, on Monday, Valentine’s Day, I headed over early to School for the counter  protest to the Westboro Baptist Church. Like really early. I had contacted my teacher that morning and told her that I would be late to class due to the possible Picket line by Westboro Baptist church because of the Anatomy of Hate, Dialog of Hope documentary that was being screened that night at my campus. My going over early had a lot to do with parking concerns – parking is always tight, and I figured that if you started to add in protesters, and people coming to the documentary on top of students fighting for spaces for night classes, I’d better get there early if I wanted a shot at parking at all. Also, I have to admit I was a little wound up. As a member of the GLBTQ community, having WBC come to picket us was pretty big! My small all women’s college has a small Gay Alliance Group and I knew they would be front and center on this, but I wasn’t sure how many others would be there.

            Also exciting  for me, I had contacted my teacher  to tell her I would be late to my not very conveniently scheduled class because I was participating in the counter protest and why, and that I would get there as soon as I could. It had made me a little sad, because I would have to miss the actual documentary, but missing classes in Grad school is just not a good idea. Imagine my delight, after getting a return email from my teacher saying she had not heard anything about this, and was going to look into it, I then received a second email, sent out to my whole class –

            Hi all,

Part of EDU683 Advanced Techniques is developing cultural competency and awareness when working with clients, as the syllabus indicates. We have a really great opportunity tonight to take advantage of. As part of Black History Month, Converse is showing the film, Anatomy of Hate: A Dialogue to Hope at 7:00 pm. I’d like for us as a class to attend the showing.  The maker of the award winning documentary, Mike Ramsdell, will be present to lead a discussion following the showing.  Honestly, I think this will be a great learning experience, much better than a class lecture.  I’ve copied below some information about the film that was published when it showed in Atlanta and pasted it below.  We’ll meet class at 5:30 as usual, have a brief lecture, and then attend. We’ll go at 6:30 in order to get a seat.  As you’ll note in the Dean”s email below, members of a church have threatened to protest the showing of the film. If they follow through, they will have to stay off campus. In a counter-protest, the students are staging a “Love-In” to show their support.  See you tonight.

How wonderful! So instead of missing my class, we would all be going over together! 

After some waiting around, I finally tracked down where the counter protest was setting up and found a miraculous nearby parking space.  That was when my jaw dropped…close to a hundred students were crowded in the open area next to the student union building (where they were going to show the documentary, picking up t-shirts and magic markers. 

 Here was the idea behind the counter protest; since WBC’s message was Hate, our message would be Love. So, the “Love in” had been provided with T-shirts (free, I found out later, by the campus services) that said “Love is….” And we were all provided with magic markers to write in whatever we wanted the shirt to say. 

I waded into the crowd, snagged a shirt, a magic marker and this is what I wrote out on mine, which I had carefully chosen with WBC in mind – “They that Love not, know not God, for God is love… 1 John 4:8” Since the WBC relies so heavily on out of context scripture from the Bible to support their hate, I wanted a verse to counter it. (I was not the only one to use that particular verse, either. ) 

Set up to the side of the open square was, believe it or not, Fox News, filming us milling around and writing on shirts. About that time, Dreamweaver, who was on her way over, had called and was on the phone with me. She reached the campus, and began circling the school. No one knew where the Westboro’s were going to set up – they were not allowed ON the campus itself so it could be a sidewalk anywhere around the outside. The main gates at the entrance were, of course the most likely spot. For a moment, Dreamweaver thought she had spotted them at the Gates, but it turned out to be ANOTHER group of counter protesters from the outside community and other colleges set up to counter Westboro. The WBC was supposed to get there at 6:15, and the minutes were ticking down. Dreamweaver kept circling – we figured if she could spot them, I could let the group know, and we could all head that way.

Meanwhile, the 100 or so, excited, milling counter protesters, including myself, had grouped up in front of the Fox News camera’s, begun waving our signs, wearing our t-shirts and cheering and singing – yup. Singing. Seems like music goes with protests the world over! We had really good harmony going with “Lean On Me”, I might add. The minutes ticked by, getting closer and closer to 6:15. The Fox news team decided to tear up to the gate and get footage of the counter protesters there. It was getting darker, as the sun set. 6:15 came and went, then 6:30.

So my class trooped over to the Student Union and got in line for the documentary. I went and found Dreamweaver who was at the head of the line to try to get us front row seats due to my hearing disability. The crowd at this point had swelled to twice its number and maybe more, with alumni and teachers joining. One teacher, herself a lesbian, came over and threw her arms around me and said how proud she was of all of us! Then we heard that a picket line had indeed formed out at the front gate moments before the Documentary started. At first, we assumed it was WBC, late to the party. I have to admit, I was frustrated – I knew that they were being met and countered by the public protest out front, but I wanted to be there myself, and there was no way to get there at that point – too far to the gate. However, we then heard that it was not Westboro, but a local church that had turned out to support THEM! Unbelievable. I have to say, I have never heard of anybody supporting a Westboro Picket Line. That was a first. 

Then, we were in our seats and the room was packed out, every chair taken, people sitting on the floor, standing in the back. Mike Ramsdell was introduced to speak, before his film ran. He was amazed – I was too. You know how documentary films go at colleges. 20 people show up, 5 of which want to actually see the film, and 15 who are there because they are required to be for a class report. There were easily 200 and more jammed into that room any way they could fit, and he was awed. 

Mike Ramsdell spoke of the purpose of the film, and why he made it. That he wished to counter Hate with dialog, with compassion. With seeing each other not as the Enemy or the Other, but as human beings, even if we disagreed, and not demonizing the Other. He then said this, which made me so proud of my fellow students, prouder than I ever have been. “Whenever I speak at showings of my film, everybody asks afterwards ‘What can I do?’ Well, you people have already done it. You could all go home, now. You have done it. Countering Hate with Love, and peaceful intervention. I am amazed!”  Wow. 

And then the lights went down, and the Documentary started. And make no mistake, despite its powerful message of hope – it was a trip into Hell. Continued in part two.  

The Day Has Come...

Believe it or not...

Westboro Baptist Church is coming to protest at my college. 

 

Yep...the Phelps crowd is descending to protest a showing of "The Anatomy of Hate" on Monday night. I am looking into possible responses. Counter picket/protest, ignore them out of existence, what the college's official policy is, etc. 

There have been some very effective counter protests against the Phelps....the Angel Action in Laramie when Mathew Shepherd was murdered and the "Not Today, Fred" protests. On the other hand, piling protest on protest can get them all the publicity they want - that is what they want! Ignoring them into oblivion is often the better answer, and there have been a few places where the Westboro protest has packed up or cancelled altogether because of lack of visibility or publicity. Another good counter protest strategy is to set up a donation pledge, where for every x amount of minutes or hours or whatever that Westboro is picketing, people can donate money or volunteer time or whatever to GLBT and other pertinent causes. That tends to get them to shut down early too. I have to say that in protesting this hate group, we need to remember WHO we are. We don't wish to become like them. We must behave better than them. We must behave with dignity, compassion and common sense, and not descend to their level. I mean that! 

I have to say...I am rather proud of my school...this entirely indicates to me that we are doing something right!

Walking a Pet Peeve...

Ok...here's one of my pet peeves. (lets get it on the leash and take it for a walk...)

INEVITABLY from someone I haven't seen in awhile..."Oh, your...partner...is it Wordweaving? Are you still together?"ARGGGHHH! Wordweaving and I have been together for 7 years, and are half way through year 8. We wear matching rings (that I proposed with). We refer to each other as wife. If I could legally marry her, I'd be at the court house and my church in five and ten minutes respectively - well, maybe a little more than that - there are speed limits and distances involved. But the automatic assumption behind this is that GLBT relationships will not last, and so you are expecting to hear about the tragic break up any minute. *headdeskthud* Not to mention not remembering Wordweaving's name. Is it just me...or is this as clueless as it sounds?

I know not all relationships last. I have had 2 explode in my face with individuals that each the time I expected seriously to spend the rest of my life with. Heterosexual marriages have a freaking half fail rate. I do understand that marriages and relationships are and can be fragile things. But I don't address ANYONE in a relationship right off the bat within five minutes of reconnecting with them with the "Are you still together?" question. And my straight acquaintances do not ask that of their straight friends. It's demeaning and relegates us to not real. Not a real marriage. Not a lasting couple. Not capable of commitment.

The converse of this is "So, how long have you been together?" When patiently told the year amount, a look of awe crosses their face, like "Wow...they haven't broken up yet. They might really last." And of course, how many years do we have to be together before it "legitimizes" the relationship? *sigh*I am not as jumpy about trans questions, because I regularly put myself on the spot for them in college class rooms - have been speaking regularly to classes about transgender issues, and I welcome the questions, even the really personal ones and the clueless ones as an opportunity to educate.

So perhaps I should try to view the above idiocy as a chance to educate. Maybe that would lower my blood pressure.*sigh*