I manage a residential high rise in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago - just a few blocks from the Obama family home. This evening I left my office for the night, went up to my apartment to grab the dog for a walk in the park and on my way out through the lobby met a new resident who was stopping by to pick up her keys. She mentioned that there was some sort of "gay rights demonstration" in the park across the street.
I walked out the door - and sure enough there's a group of picketers standing in the park across the street from the synagogue next door. I bet its the first time that protestors from Westboro Baptist Church have ever been mistaken for a "gay rights" demonstration. Sporting big shit-eating grins they stood holding signs that said "God Hates Jews", "God Hates Fags" and "God Hates Obama". Cars slowed down to see what was up, followed by lots of "Fuck You Assholes!" when the drivers and passengers figured out what was going on.
This isn't the first time I've encountered these clowns. I've been reading about them for something like 20 years now. I remember their cruel protests at funerals for people who had died of AIDS - in the early days of the epidemic when when every week the gay papers had obituary after obituary of dead gay men in their teens, twenties and thirties. I remember their "Matthew is in Hell" protests after Matthew Shepherd was tied to a fence post in Wyoming and left to die. And I remember them being pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables and being driven from Boystown when they came here to protest at Broadway United Methodist Church.
A few months ago they protested about a mile away at the University of Chicago. I hadn't heard they were coming then either - but was proud of my city and proud of my neighborhood when a great group of frat boys from Alpha Delta Phi blasted a recording of "I'm Coming Out" from the house and performed a strip show for them. So far over 126,000 people have watched the youtube video http://www.youtube.com/... I made a comment in another diary about them just a week or so ago - make fun of them, that's the only thing they don't know how to handle.
And yet this evening I pretty much lost it. I wasn't prepared - and I find a hate group waiving their signs NEXT DOOR TO MY HOME! Children are running around the park, a big family group of hispanic folks are having a picnic a few feet away, folks are walking dogs - enjoying the first evening it hasn't been raining it what seems like weeks. And these creeps are out there grinning waiving their placards of hate. And my tax dollars are paying for the police escort that's keeping them from being beaten to a bloody pulp.
Maybe I should have just walked away - confrontation is really what they seek. But there is something primal about having your own neighborhood invaded - and so I stood there and screamed at them. When "Fuck You" became too monotonous I told them to get out of Hyde Park, get out of Chicago, go back to fuckin' Topeka. And I screamed "Got Hates You" in response to their "God Hates (fill in the blank)" signs. I told passers by who they were, what they stood for - what they had been doing for the last 20 years. And it didn't change anything. I don't feel better. They wandered off to ruin someone else's evening about 30 minutes after they showed up. And now I'm just emotional and angry - mostly at myself for letting them get to me.
So what should I have done? Is any kind of decent, meaningful response even possible when you stumble into these people? When they show up at your workplace, at your home, at your place of worship?