Westboro Baptist Church
Today I had the “opportunity” to photograph a picketing by the Westboro Baptist Church at my alma mater, Woodbridge Senior High School. If you don’t know who they are, they are perhaps the most controversial example of free speech in this country at the moment. The Westboro Baptist Church has embarked on a crusade to let everyone know that “God Hates Fags”. In fact, they believe that all the deaths from AIDS, 9/11 and the wars that followed are because of our implicit acceptance of homosexuality. God is apparently punishing us.
They’ve become quite infamous for their strategy of picketing funerals of AIDS victims, soldiers and Marines. I won’t go into the logic of their argument, but suffice it to say, they certainly get a reaction out of many people.
So about a half dozen church members picketed across from the high school and about 200 people responded to protest their presence, or message. As a photographer, I would have liked for them all to be within 5 feet of each other, but of course, the police knew that was a bad idea, and the two groups were kept 4 lanes and a median away from each other.
I’m split on the idea of covering such an event. Doing so certainly encourages them. Shirley Phelps-Roper (pictured below) patently admitted she loves that 200 people come out to protest her presence. And she should. Without them, they become irrelevant. So from that point of view I wish we could just sweep them under the rug and ignore them. But on the other hand, that they evoke such a response, is enough of a reason to cover it.
See the story here
They’ve become quite infamous for their strategy of picketing funerals of AIDS victims, soldiers and Marines. I won’t go into the logic of their argument, but suffice it to say, they certainly get a reaction out of many people.
So about a half dozen church members picketed across from the high school and about 200 people responded to protest their presence, or message. As a photographer, I would have liked for them all to be within 5 feet of each other, but of course, the police knew that was a bad idea, and the two groups were kept 4 lanes and a median away from each other.
I’m split on the idea of covering such an event. Doing so certainly encourages them. Shirley Phelps-Roper (pictured below) patently admitted she loves that 200 people come out to protest her presence. And she should. Without them, they become irrelevant. So from that point of view I wish we could just sweep them under the rug and ignore them. But on the other hand, that they evoke such a response, is enough of a reason to cover it.
See the story here
Counter protesting is a means of relieving the mental pressure created by these signs. Instead of driving by "Pray For More Dead Kids" and sending your thought process in a downward spiral, you see "Honk 4 Positive Energy" & "Hate is easy, Love takes courage", it shifts your mindset to one of positivity and change... and THATS what it's all about ;]. Shifting the mindset, because if we don't... who will? Let us not be a nation who silences good morality to avoid revealing the bad in socitey.
ReplyDelete...but then again I suppose everyone has their own reasons for going...
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