Brief chuckle from 'round our way.
Everybody around here is likely familiar with Fred Phelps and his Westoboro Baptist immediate family "Church." So rabidly does Mr. Phelps abhor the thought of homosexuality that he organizes his group to loudly protest and disrupt the funerals of fallen American servicemen, claiming that "God hates fags" so much that He curses our nation for permitting homosexuality to flourish, and that all the evils that befall us, from natural disasters to soldiers killed in combat, are all evidence of His divine bigotry.
Well, we don't have any wars going on down here in South Louisiana, nor, thankfully, any natural disasters right now, but we do have one item that caught Mr. Phelps' attention: a high school play. Little Dutchtown High down in Ascension Parish (southeast of Baton Rouge, for all you compulsive cartographers) decided to mount a showing of "The Laramie Project," a play about the brutal slaying of Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student who was beaten to death for being gay by two local men.
Phelps' "church," of course, picketed Shepard's funeral as well.
When Phelps heard that Dutchtown High was going to put on Matthew's story, they announced they would be protesting the event, bringing down the kids, the hateful God signs, the usual Westboro circus. They even called the local TV station, saying they were on site at the school and ready to voice God's wrath.
The only problem? Um, a lack of faithful, shall we say?
One protester, Anthony Battaglia from First Baptist Church in Gonzales, wound up facing a crowd of about 500 counter-protesters alone.
And what peaceful, loving and funny counter-protesters they turned out to be, according to another Baton Rouge station:
Counter-protester the Rev. Clinton Crawshaw with The Big Easy Metropolitan Community Church out of New Orleans, replied that Battaglia had picked the wrong side. “You know you have to choose a side — hatred, or love,” Crawshaw said
. . .
The mass of counter protesters at Dutchtown High carried signs with slogans such as “God hates fat-free mayonnaise,” “God Drinks Haterade” and “Jesus had two dads, why can’t I?” meant to deflect the message for which Westboro is known.
There's a valuable lesson here for religionists and others who care strongly about their beliefs:
If all you and your God do is hate, don't expect too many people to show up at His parties.