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A creative response to bigotry |
| Huntsville, AL, people of faith offer creative witness
against Fred Phelps’ bigotry [11-25-06]
You have probably read of the accident this past Monday in Huntsville, Ala.,
when a school bus carrying more than 30 students from Lee High School was
forced off of an elevated portion of Interstate 565 downtown.
Two teenage girls were killed at the scene, and two others
died later in the hospital. A number of other were listed in critical
condition.
For reasons not at all clear, the Rev. Fred Phelps, pastor
of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, decided that the funerals of
the students needed to be attended by his group, which is most notorious
recently for protesting the funerals of US servicepeople with loud jeers and
posters reading "God Hates Fags" and so on.
Here is the text of WBC’s "News Release" on the matter,
published on Tuesday, Nov. 21:
WBC to picket the funerals of schoolchildren killed in
Huntsville, Alabama when their school bus from Lee High School plunged 30
feet off a highway overpass—in religious protest and warning: "God is not
mocked!" Gal. 6:7. God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers! Ergo, God hates Alabama
and America because they have gone the way of Sodom and have become The
Land of the Sodomite Damned.
[several disjointed passages of scripture follow]
God has cursed Alabama and America: "There is no peace,
saith the Lord, unto the wicked." Isa. 48:22
Responding in a creative way that has been used in a
number of other such situation, Tom Moss, of the Social Justice Committee of
the Unitarian Universalist Church in Huntsville, circulated this email
appeal:
Pledge Your contribution @ 1.00 per minute for Phelps' "Time:"
Here's something that has been done successfully in other cities:
collect pledges for a good cause for each minute that Phelps and his group
demonstrate. The longer Phelps is there, the more money gets donated. We
will display a large sign that is visible to Phelps, and will update it
every 10 minutes with the current total. After much thought: all money
will then be donated to the families of the deceased students. Would you
be willing to donate? I suggest $1.00 for every 10 minutes that Phelps and
his group demonstrates in Huntsville. More or less is OK, of course,
depending upon your circumstances.
There will be one funeral on Friday, and two on Saturday. The fourth
has not been scheduled.
Please send me your pledge by Friday morning, and also let me know if
you would like to help in other ways. Followup emails will be made to
collect pledges.
Tom Moss,
Mr.Carlson@knology.net
Social Justice Committee
Unitarian Universalist Church
Yesterday afternoon, after the first of the funerals, Tom Moss followed
up with this report and note of thanks:
Hi all, First off, I'd like to thank everyone for your generous
support, and am sorry that there is not time to reply to all of you
individually. There has been a wonderful response! We have received
$1160.00 in straight contributions, and pledges of $935.00 per hour. More
support is still rolling in. After the funeral today, an amount of
$2406.72 has been raised. As some of you may have heard, the Huntsville
police gave Fred Phelps a permit only for 45 minutes, from 11:15 until
noon, at which time the funeral was scheduled to begin. When I arrived
about 10:30, there was a big police presence, and I love what they set up
for a demonstration space for Phelps! They parked two city buses in front
of the small space reserved for them, completely hiding them from public
view. We were allowed to stand on the other side of the street.
A good number of counter-protestors showed up (see picture below). Most
of them carried positive signs, like "Respect the Funeral", "Respect
Grief", and "God is Love". Rebecca Smith and I stood with two signs. One
stated "Huntsville Cares", and the other said (at the end of the protest)
"$2100 for Lee High Families and AAC" Here you see the demonstration space
(behind the two buses). We could hear the Westboro people shouting and
singing over there, but the only time we could see them was when they
left, shortly after noon.
I doubt that the Westboro demonstrators even saw our signs, but the
people going to the funeral were appreciative of everyone's support for
the families. However, just to make sure that Fred Phelps knows, I will
send a letter to the Westboro "Baptist Church" telling how their time was
redirected for positive purposes. That is probably it -- I understand now
that the Phelps crowd is scheduled to be in Orlando tomorrow, so
hopefully, no more funerals will be disrupted. For those who missed
previous updates, they are included below. We're working out details about
payment so that donations will be tax-deductible, and will send out
information on where to send your money later on this weekend. There will
undoubtedly be more coming in, but for the moment, we have raised $1600.00
for the families of the kids in the bus crash, and $800 for Aids Action
Coalition. Thanks for caring, and for helping convert hatred into an
awesome act of community!
Warm Regards, T.
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Phelps and friends are behind those buses. |
Witnesses for a loving God |
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An index of
our reports
from
BECOMING NEIGHBORS:
An Invitation
to Global Discipleship
A Witherspoon conference
on global mission and justice
September 16 - 19, 2007
Louisville, Kentucky |
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Terror, Torture,
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