My First Post in Anger and Hate
Please be warned, this post will be profane. If you do not enjoy that kind of language, do not keep reading. Much of the profanity will be quotes.
Hey everyone,
I am posting this to educate some members of the Portland community to a situation that is arising that I have been angry about all day. I don’t know what else I can do but try to help and get the word out.
So there is a man in this nation. A man who makes me boil with hate with every fiber of my being. A man named Fred Phelps. He is a reverend who associates himself with the Westboro Baptist Church. Now this particular Baptist church (which is not to say all of them) is home to a lot of hate, and has caused a lot of pain and anguish for various families and organizations. They are the owners of the GodHatesFags.com, and as of February 20th, 2010 they have brought their fight into my life.
How is it that they have entered my life? Well, on February 20th, 2010 they had a press release on said website, which shall no longer be stated by name or linked to in this post. A press release announcing a planned picketing (something they do quite often all across the country) saying that they will be coming to Waynflete School in Portland Maine to picket Waynflete’s production of The Laramie Project on Saturday April 10th.
For those of you who don’t know the show, The Laramie Project is about the murder of Matthew Sheppard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming in 1998. The play is comprised of interviews with members of the town, diary entries, and news reports in order to show the world how much of a hate crime his murder was. Now this is a mild retelling of the play, which is extremely powerful and emotional; however, if you want to know more, google it, or see a production. You won’t be sorry.
Last semester, I got an email from my mother saying that a director who I love and respect from my old high school wanted to direct a production of this groundbreaking play. She was having a hard time convincing people that it was a good idea to do at a high school. Being a show that I love, I asked my roommate at IC to send an email to my mother that she could forward to the powers that be. My roommate maintains that doing The Laramie Project was one of the greatest theatrical experiences of his life, and helped show him he wanted to pursue acting. This was at a high school in Newton, Massachusetts. Well that email worked; the school approved doing the show. So I felt good that I was going to be helping my old alma mater do something important theatrically. So when Fred Phelps and his organization of hate and gay-bashing announced in a press release that they would be coming to Waynflete, I took it as a personal attack on the things that I hold important.
I have downloaded and re-uploaded the press release entire press so that you can see without having to visit that horrible site. I warn you, it is not nice, and it is mostly awful to read: it leaves a hard feeling in the pit of my stomach every time I look at it. If you don’t want to read it, I’ve retyped some select quotes to give you an idea of the full extent of this group’s hate. However if you would rather read it yourself, feel free to do so by clicking the following link. WBC’s Press Release about Waynflete
Here are some of the more hateful statements made in the press release:
WBC to picket The Laramie Project, a fag propaganda play about Matt Shepard (in hell for 11 years now), in religious protest & warning: Saturday, April 10, from 6:45 to 7:30 PM
Judy Shepard raised her son to be a disobedient pervert, and God cut that child off. His blood is on her hands!
Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for eleven years, with eternity left to go on his sentence – without appeal, parole, or time off for good behavior.
God Hates Fags! God Hates Fag-Enablers! Ergo, God hates fag-infested & fag-enabling Portland, ME and all having to do with spreading sodomite lies via The Laramie Project – a tacky piece of cheap, lying, fag propaganda masquerading as legitimate theater.
This is more than I can stomach. I understand that not all people share my views of the world, and not all people agree with me on Gay Rights. I can abide those people, I can at least understand that they exist. I can’t understand or abide the hatred that stems from the WBC and Fred Phelps’ followers. I have never truly hated a person. With every piece of my soul do I detest Fred Phelps, and you can bet your ass that if they confirm that they are coming to Portland, I will be right there joining in a peaceful anti-rally.
Do you wish to join? Any ideas people have I would love to hear, but members of the Portland Community should really communicate on this one. I live in upstate New York, and while you better believe I’ll be there, I can’t organize this. I think the response should stay in-state and local, however perhaps bringing in a group more accustomed to dealing with the WBC might help. One possible idea would be to contact the website www.phelps-a-thon.com who regularly hold anti-WBC rallys. I know that I would not be able to hold myself in if I saw some of those signs, and heard some of those protesters, and I know that they make their living and their name off suing people who throw the first punch in their direction. Phelps-A-Thon offers an alternative. They take pledges based on every minute that the WBC is protesting on the other side of the street. These pledges are given to local LGBT organizations and then they thank the WBC protesters for helping to make that much money on behalf of gay rights. It adds a feeling of hope to an otherwise hateful and hopeless situation.
I urge everyone to keep a close eye on the WBC and their plans, because while their press release says they will be there, their official schedule does not have us listed on their hate-docket for April 10, 2010. This means they may or may not come. Maybe they won’t show, but I would hate for them to actually show up, and not have the students of Waynflete School, and the members of the LGBT community of Portland Maine see present every face that supports gay rights, and every face that stands for everything the WBC does not. So please, I ask you all to keep an eye on my blog, and on Phelps-A-Thon’s schedule to see if they will turn out to stand in the face of hate and turn a miserable situation into a positive one. We cannot yell at these people, we can not give them fuel for their fire because we will not quench them, and they will not relent. We need a Phelps-A-Thon style approach to maintain a peaceful protest, and we can honestly thank them for helping us raise money on behalf of the LGBT community of Portland Maine.
Plus, if you all come protest, you can then stay and see a wonderful show afterwards! It’s a little hard to watch, but it is unbelievably important in helping to start a conversation about LGBT roles in a community, and what a community can do to support such individuals as Matthew Sheppard. Please don’t let a wonderful step forward in local high school theatre be marred by such a horrible establishment as the Westboro Baptist Church. I hope that any members of the Baptist churches in Maine who stand on the side of gay rights and for equality for all will denounce this man. I hope that they will openly say that they do not support his demonstration, and that they will stand on the side of right when April 10th comes around.
This country was founded on the idea that all men are created equal. In my opinion, to stand in the way of gay rights is just as wrong as when people stood in the way of rights for African-Americans, or in the face of women’s suffrage. It supports the sort of hate which led to the Holocaust, to the unbelievable atrocities that happened in Darfur, Armenia, Bosnia, Russia, and any other place where people have been oppressed, killed, or hated because of who they are or how they think. Last time I checked we stopped burning people for being witches a long time ago. How is the anti-gay movement anything more than a witchhunt when it is on the level of hate of the WBC?
Please. Everyone find a way to stand up against Fred Phelps and the WBC. In my opinion they are the modern-day equivalent of Hitler’s Nazi party, and something that evil has to be stood against.
Yours in caring and hope for a better future,
~Ned Donovan
Dave Lent said:
The Westboro church is a modern version of Hitler.
I was in your dad`s class at Lynnfield HS. My facebook page has a link to my Lynnfield picture site,he`s in 1or2 reunion pics,also have a link to 2 Disney anti-nazi cartoons on youtube