The lunatics from Westboro Baptist Church bring their disgusting little hate-filled circus to our community on Friday, demonstrating outside East Boston High School for 45 minutes beginning at 7 a.m. They are the people who go to the funerals of soldiers to hold signs that proclaim god's hatred for the deceased.
The Kansas-based group came out to Massachusetts this week to demonstrate at Reading High School, whose students are performing The Laramie Project, about Matthew Shepherd, the 21-year-old who was murdered because of his sexual orientation. The WBC has also been at a high school in Cambridge, Hanscom Air Base and Lexington High School, where residents of that community greeted them with silence.
I'm not sure if a counterdemonstration is planned, but you have to wonder if ignoring such people might be the best way to make them go away.
Update (3/22): Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham writes about the WBC visit.
11 comments:
When met with groups like that we should always take the high road. What Lexington did was perfect. Ignoring them would also be acceptable. The last thing you want to do is get into a shouting match with them. All that does is validate their presence in their eyes.
Why have they chosen Eastie High? What abomination is happening there? : )
No one is quite sure why Eastie was chosen. Some guessed that it might be because East Boston High School as a Gay/Straight Alliance student group, which is an anti-hate student group.
I've just returned from the counter-protest and there was a good showing of Eastie residents. We should be proud that our neighborhood stood in solidarity against this hate group.
I have to admit, it is the most bizarre thing that I've experienced in East Boston. These people are a cult. They actually had signs that said "God hates your children" and "God hates all nations." My favorite has to be a sign with a doublecheeseburger in the middle with the slogan "Bitch Burger." That's a head-scratcher for sure.
But Eastie showed them that, whatever our problems, we don't hate. We may not like each other all the time, but we don't hate.
Thanks for the report, N.starluna. I was on my way to work at the time, so I didn't see any of it. Were any local TV stations on hand?
I didn't see any TV stations but I did see a camera, perhaps from a local station. It was great to see Eastie come out to show that we will defend our students against hate groups.
Someone was video taping but I didn't see if it was a news organization. If anyone sees any news coverage it'd be great if they could pass the links on.
I understand there may be an article in the Globe about it on Sunday.
These people are just crazy, IMO. But I'm glad that others were able to go and support the school today. I would have gone, but that pesky work thing got in the way :)
I saw a Fox 25 camera, but no one doing interviews or anything like that.
At least everyone on our side of the street was being friendly and cheery, if a little cold.
I couldn't figure out "Bitch Burger" either. Maybe God hates cows, too.
Well, if it was Fox then you know it won't be reported because nothing happened. The nutty folks stayed in their protest zone. The community stayed on our side and were (mostly) respectful. No blows, no drama, no one arrested. If anything, it felt like just a big community get together.
They protested at the Harvard Law School yesterday too. Someone was quoted in the campus newspaper that they learned from last week's protest at Cambridge Rindge that these people are these people aren't that interesting. So the counter-protest is more of a celebration of our respect and tolerance. I felt the same way in Eastie.
Here's a link to the Globe op-ed piece about the demo:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/22/the_gospel_of_hate/
My curiosity was peaked. I sent an e mail to Westboro Baptist Church asking for some clarification on “Bitch Burger.” It has been over a week and no response. Maybe they don’t know what it means.
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