An interesting day yesterday, in the neighborhood. I’ve a small nonprofit providing meal services for three subsidized housing units run by Catholic Community Services (CSS) for the homeless, two for men over 55 and the other for CSS’ drug and alcohol program. The newest, open only six weeks is just across the street from Seattle’s biggest Catholic church. Well the universe, having a sense of humor, decided to dispatch Fred Phelps, of “God Hates Fags” fame to Seattle. (http://www.seattlepi.com/local/407211_hate0614.html ...

“Later, at St. James Cathedral, church members celebrated the Corpus Christi procession outside the church in white robes. Across the street, Westboro protesters took advantage of the moment by shouting their message waving placards.

"You're the ones responsible for priests raping children," shouted one protester.

Jarring comments like that need to be challenged, said counter-demonstrators - even if it means giving the messages of hate even more attention.

"A lot of times now we feel like we need not react to this - ignore it and it will go away," says Eduardo Brambila. "But it's not happening. We're here, we're proud, and look, you can't even hear them. ... And we're not going to let this in our community.”

The across the street mentioned in the article was the front of our building. So we have the Phelps with their idiotic signs and some big speakers on our side of the street, the church procession across the street and a huge number of protesters form various anti hate groups including the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in all the regal finery. Not to mention a huge contingent of cops. It was kind of like looking up from your work to find a three ring circus has set up around you and you are in center ring. This is particularly ironic because I am trans, my business partner is a Portuguese Jew, and two of my cooks working that morning were a self described transsexual Satanist vampire, and a black Rastafarian Moslem from Zanzibar off the East coast of Africa.. The cops had to escort my business partner through the demonstrators to get him out of there. My Rastafarian Moslem, who is drop dead gorgeous, went out to check out the scene and was immediately set upon by the press. “Do you hate faggots?” And Chandi, in his lilting East African accent answered, “Hey Mon, I’m Rasta. I believe in peace and love. I love everybody.” This of course occasioned great cheering from the anti protesters.

This whole circus makes me wonder though. The Phelps protesters were so ridiculous and so pathetic, and the response was so massive, that I wonder if we shouldn’t completely ignore them, give them no free publicity. It seems that we are in some way validating their position by giving is such fame. What do other people think?

Transward

What do I think? Wow, I never get asked that question at home, this is gonna take me a while... I am not accostomed to thinking.

Well, first I think "I am damn glad and happy to know the Fred Phelps bunch is at your place and NOT mine, because I just don't know what I would do to handle such a problem." And since "... I just don't know what I would do..." I am not going to take "pot shots" at your choices of action or inaction. So far, it seems to me you and yours have done the best they could in that awful situation... I want to say something like "God bless you," but people like Fred Phelps et al cause me to really wonder about "God" and who he or she is. I will just say that I hope and wish for you the best possible outcome with this horrible situation, and I admire the restraint you have shown.... I do truly believe if the Phelps crowd was that close to me I might do something very counter-productive and foolish, like throwing a bucket of pig manure on them. Seriously, that bunch is evil.

Then secondly... I think... too bad you don't have a few pet skunks. I don't have "pet" skunks myself, but my area is infested with them. Sometimes they come and kill my chickens and I have to do what I must to protect my livestock - but they are actually very cute, I hate to kill them, so I usually relocate them... (the county ag agent tells me that any re-locating within ten miles is pretty damn near worthless, they just come right back to where they know they have food and water.) Well, keeping wild skunks as pets is illegal anyway, but oh what fun it would be to have "Fluffy" and "Pepe LePew" just walk out onto that sidewalk as Fred Phelps and his mob show up. "Ready! AIM! SPEWWWW!"

Fred Phelps group mainly consists of family members.

In order to get rid of evil you have to shine a big bright light right on them! If you ignore them you are allowing them to grow unchecked until one day they walk into a building and start shooting.

We had this group of clowns show up in Greensboro a couple of years ago to picket the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. Now this guy was a motorcyclist. He was not a biker gang guy, but they showed up in force. The police were keeping a very low profile (like almost non-existent). I pointed out to Fred's sister the large number of bikers who were there just waiting to tear up the asses of these false prophets. They left, and a very wise decision too.

Speed

Phelps and his extended family are masters at making the world seem like a really nasty place. Their actions, usually directed at totally innocent people need to be punished. Here in Maryland, they picketed a funeral, and ended up sued by the family, who won a huge judgement against them.

The more media coverage their outrageous acts get, the more that people will rise up to complain. In many places there are laws requiring that any protest must first get a permit to gather at a specific location. We should start arresting the Phelps clan when they fail to obtain the correct permits. We can additionally refuse to grant permits for locations that would be inflammatory, such as funerals or across from other churches.

Their brand of "christianity" has no connection to the teachings of the Catholic church to which I belong, nor to any other organized denomination , I am aware of. Thank God , that others don't interpret the Bible as they do!!!

Hopefully when the illustrious Reverend Phelps finally goes screaming off to Hell, the rest of them will fade into the woodwork.

Ray