On Sunday, Feb. 22, with frozen toes and high spirits, the good people of Buffalo watched as three intolerant bigots of the Westboro Baptist Church walked away from another pathetic protest attempt with their tails between their legs.
It all happened outside the funeral ceremony of the late Alison Des Forges, who before the tragic crash of flight 3407 had spent her days as a UB history professor and dedicated human rights activist. The WBCs were in attendance at this memorial, celebrating the fateful crash that took 50 lives, because of a belief that God hates America.
The basic idea behind the WBC's entire operation is simple: hate. A look at their Web site, www.godhatesfags.org, may seem surreal, or even fake, but it isn't. It is basically a long list of things that God hates and it includes: "the Godless Turks", the Netherlands, America, homosexuals, the world, and among many other things... you.
Don't find this offensive enough? Take a look at their music videos. The beautiful melody of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" can be heard tossed into a hateful Baptist mix-down, proclaimed loudly from the voices of mothers, fathers, and children alike with the replacement lyrics "this land is going straight to hell!" Or a video that is particularly hard not to laugh at is one that presents the WBC's rendition of "Big Pimpin'", a song accusing everyone who isn't a fellow hater of a life of vanity and "Big Sinnin' ".
At first the songs, mission statements, and banners on this ridiculous Web site seem to be fake. Then they become funny, and still seemingly fake. However, after watching a few of these videos, when it sets in that it is real and that there are people who truly and passionately believe these horrible things, I realized that the only word to describe it is sick.
One video in particular left me feeling a little disturbed. It was a young girl, probably no more than 3 years old, singing one of these hate songs into a camera for what I can only envision as proudly ignorant parents standing behind the lens. It struck me then how these people are literally sick. Their intolerance is a disease, handed down through generations, strangling the dreaming heads of young children until the last opening in their mind is stuffed with the body of Christ and boarded shut.
I have no tolerance for these people just the way that they have no tolerance for anything outside of their specific interpretation of the Bible, but in a way I do feel sorry for them. Watching that young girl sing, I realized what little choice she has of growing up to be an accepting person. She will grow up learning that individuality is wrong. These people who tried to picket outside of Des Forges' funeral must have had similar childhoods, and I find it incredibly sad that anyone should be put through that.
I'm not exactly sure how anyone can put a stop to this constant cycle of intolerance. I don't even expect to see it weeded out in my lifetime. One thing that I do hope to see more of in my lifetime is the kind of support that I witnessed on Feb. 22. The hundreds of people who gathered to silence the WBC's picketing seems to me to be the best possible thing that we can do to minimize this irrational hatred. These WBC members surely didn't change their narrow minds that day, but they did see what they have to face if they continue to actively hate others.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
