{"id":2508,"date":"2008-12-13T15:51:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-13T19:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/?p=2508"},"modified":"2011-03-19T11:38:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-19T15:38:08","slug":"countering-westboro-demonstrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/2008\/12\/countering-westboro-demonstrators\/","title":{"rendered":"Countering Westboro Demonstrators with Love, Love, Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Westboro Baptist Church group was stationed in Atlanta at the corner of Chamblee Tucker Road and Henderson Road, a block or so from the church where the funeral was being held. Their signs said things like “God Hates You,” “America is Doomed,” “Pray for More Dead Soldiers” and various other anti-government and anti-gay sentiments. One sign portrayed stick figures wearing Santa hats and engaging in anal intercourse. This seems pretty typical, judging by some of the photos on Flickr. <\/a> Drivers couldn’t really see the Westboro group until they were right up on them. This is very near a highway exit. It was really interesting to watch the cars going by. I got a few thumbs up and smiles. They got a number of shouts and some old-fashioned flipping off. However, most of the people in cars were either studiously pretending not to see what was happening or talking excitedly on their cellphones.<\/p>\n

It was actually pretty low-key as these things go. DeKalb police guarded the entrance and exit to the church, and the demonstrators were about half a block away. If you came in for the funeral on Henderson Road, you wouldn’t even have seen them. I suspect that it was a different sort of scene at the other, probably more prominent, Atlanta event at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church<\/a> – maybe that’s why the demonstrators here were mostly female. They didn’t seem to have a serious interest in personally provoking anyone at this particular event. They laughed and jeered a little, but it was very easy to disregard them, partly because I stood on the corner across the street on Henderson (on the same side of the road on Chamblee Tucker). <\/p>\n

It was a little scary for me at first and I was shaking for the first ten minutes or so, but then it got better when I started focusing on love. I let my favorite songs of love play in my mind, and I imagined beaming with healing, caring energy. It was wonderful.<\/p>\n

My sign was clearly a home-made sort of thing, just one of the big posters we use for my son’s school projects. The details at the bottom probably weren’t readable at a distance, but that’s all right.<\/p>\n

\"And<\/p>\n

I was the only one there with an alternative message. I maintained silence and simply held the sign up to cars driving by. <\/p>\n

On my way home, I passed the officers guarding the entrance and exit of the church where the funeral was being held. Knowing why they were there, I slowed and gave them a thumbs up. To my surprise, they returned the gesture! That felt really… really good – an unexpected thing.<\/p>\n

Thank you to everyone who helped me decide<\/a> what was best.<\/p>\n

It was very much worth doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Westboro Baptist Church group was stationed in Atlanta at the corner of Chamblee Tucker Road and Henderson Road, a block or so from the church where the funeral was being held. Their signs said things like “God Hates You,” “America is Doomed,” “Pray for More Dead Soldiers” and various other anti-government and anti-gay sentiments. One sign portrayed stick figures wearing Santa hats and engaging in anal intercourse. This seems pretty typical, judging by some of the photos on Flickr….<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,17,34,5,10,6,20,3,8,27],"tags":[2764,6183,5328,5327,83,957,3268,1987,6178,5325],"class_list":["post-2508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-armchair-activism","category-alien-nation","category-atlanta","category-culture","category-human-rights","category-personal","category-photo","category-politics","category-religion","category-virushead","tag-anti-christian-message","tag-atlanta","tag-counter-demonstration","tag-demonstration","tag-faith","tag-funeral","tag-hope","tag-love","tag-virushead","tag-westboro-baptist-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2508"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4772,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508\/revisions\/4772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}