Westboro Baptist Church Visits Ohio State

0 Comments | Posted by Pete in Events and Rallies, Ohio State and Outlaws

Westboro_Baptist_Church_at_Ohio_State This morning, from 10:00am to 10:30am, the Westboro Baptist Church was scheduled to protest at the Ohio State University student union building. From their infamous website godhatesfags.com, they gave this reason: “These college students spend more time pursuing their drunken sins than their academic studies. Their professors happily teach them the ubiquitous lie that “it’s OK to be gay” and its [sic] just fine to flip off God and mock His servants.”

Whatever.

I happily donned my purple Legalize Gay t-shirt to join an expected throng of counter protesters. As I walked towards the student union, I came upon the scene at the corner of High Street and 11th, right next to the law school building.

(Click the image to see more from the event.)

I can see the lunatic WBC leader, Maggie Phelps, but where were all the counter protesters? There were a few intermingled within the WBC gang, but the Facebook event showed 1800 attending and another 2348 maybes!

It only took a few minutes for the phalanx of funny sign-carrying counter protesters who had congregated at the student union building (the schedule destination) to be re-routed a few blocks south to overwhelm the WBC.

While the WBC tried to seduce our gay-minded mentalities with a cheesy rip-off of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” (video), only substituting lyrics of hate, the small group of intolerant whackos were no match for the congregation of love-promoting OSU students. It felt good to be in the majority.

There’s a powerful scene in the movie “Milk”, where Harvey Milk thanks the opposition, because opposition unites. That message was echoed recently by gay-rights activist Cleve Jones, thanking the Mormon church for bringing the community closer together after Prop 8.

With that same thought, I can do nothing but thank WBC for bring us together today. For the fifty or so cars and pedestrians that passed by their demonstration, hundreds of young adults came together in unison preaching love and tolerance.

The message was clear: our future is bright.

I took a final video of the crowd chanting, “Hey, hey! Go home! These homophobes have got to go!” as WBC packed up their belongings and headed to their next destination for the day (where they will inevitably be met by another several hundred counter protesters).

Oh, and the award for the best costume-plus-sign combination has to go to this lady rocking a Boba Fett mask and a sign that read: “God Hates Trekkies”.