…wherein Lauren waxes philosophical and crap about hanging with the haters.
Now that the charming and affable Phelps clan of Westboro Baptist Church infamy have finished up their whistle-stop tour of hate here in Vermont and have zoomed out of the state in their peppy little Kia minivan, it might be appropriate to reflect on the day. Other people more introspective and cerebral than I might offer some sort of analysis about hate and peace and love and all that junk, but I can only tell you what I took away from the day. And in order to tell you what I took away from the day, I have to tell you what the day entailed. So here goes. Apologies if you nod off.
I hauled my fanny out of bed at 6 a.m., which for a reporter is like being asked to do math or not make stuff up. I hit the road to Montpelier by 6:45 a.m. so I could make it to the high school in time to watch the Swiss Family Bonkers picket students as they rolled into school for their first day back from summer vaykay. Of course when I arrived I was the last media person on the scene. Everyone was there- radio, TV, the daily print papers from around the region. No one was going to miss the most exciting thing to happen to sleepy Vermont since gay marriage.
Everything about the scene was predictable. The signs the four adult Phelpses waved were the same ones they trot out for every soldier’s funeral, football game and Catholic church they picket. They read “God Hates You,” “Fags Wed,” “Antichrist Obama” and “Mourn for Your Sins.” I quite liked the sign that read “You Will Eat Your Babies.” Still not sure why I might be inclined to eat my babies, but I truly hope it never comes to that; I’m a vegetarian.
My personal favorite was the sign that read “Bitch Burger” and showed a picture of a hamburger with a baby making up half the bun. When I asked Shirley Phelps-Roper, the multi-childrened daughter of church founder Fred Phelps — Shirls to me — what that meant, she broke into some tirade about people in California eating baby eyeballs. Right, then.
The hate clan was smaller than I expected. It consisted of Shirls, her oldest son, Sam; her youngest son, 7 y.o. Luke, her sister Margie and a granddaughter of the “Rev.” Phelps, Jael Phelps, who was actually sort of cute in that “I’ll eat your young and poop on your doorstep” sort of way. I guess it’s good that their numbers are so small because that means their atonal singing could be drowned out by the counter-protesters.
Erin McDermott, my new bestie in Montpelier, said it was like watching the bad kid who feeds off of negative attention. Too right. Why else would they make a sign depicting Rosie O’Donnell as Jabba the Hut and Ellen DeGeneres as a pig in shit? And why else would they force little Luke, who was freezing his little fingers off, to hold that sign in the face of counter-protesters wearing clown suits, smashing cream pies in their own faces and heckling the family?
Simpson’s fans might have taken issue with the Phelpses’ representation of Santa’s Little Helper on a sign that read “Fags Wed.” I asked Jael (pronounced J.L., not Jail), why put such a sweet, innocent cartoon on their signs and she told me, matter-of-factly, that fags are beasts and dogs are beasts, so fags must be dogs. Um, my dog might take issue with that, thanks very much Jay-L.
Through the course of about four hours, Team Hate hustled to six different spots including the Statehouse, UVM and Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Hate apparently waits for no man. At each location they were greeted with sign-wielding counter-protesters, gawkers and drive-by horn honkers. One angry motorist screamed out the window of his truck “Fuck Jesus and fuck you, too!” Not the kind of peaceful response the counter-protesters were looking for, but it added some aggression to the day that matched that of the Phelpses Hate Force.
Hundreds of people, both in Montpelier and in Burlington, greeted the Phelpses in different ways. In the preceding weeks, there has been much discussion over what to do when they arrived. Ignore them and instead focus on acts of kindness and peace throughout the day? Show up to one of the locations and kill them with love? Engage them, despite the inherent futility, just because it’s fun to have an excuse to shout in someone’s face?
Outside of OZ, Laura Merit, of Burlington, passed out instructions to counter-protesters asking them to leave and not give the clan any more attention. After spending hours with these vitriol-spewers, I tended to agree with Merit. What if no one showed up to watch them? What if we acted like they didn’t exist? Would they still picket? It’s like the tree falling down in the woods question. If the Phelpses’ squawk about eating babies and no one is around to hear it, are they still making any noise? I don’t know. I for one feel it’s important to bear witness to this kind of activity, but perhaps that just because I’m a nebbie rubbernecker.
There’s something scandalously thrilling about watching a man wearing a T-shirt that says “Super Jew” standing his ground as the hatemongers scream in his face and talk about what a blessing the Holocaust was. While I am not an advocate of violence, I will admit that it was equally thrilling watching a UVM student throw a small book at Margie Phelps that hit her right in one of the nine dozen signs she was holding.
And I have to say, I felt a little jolt of adrenalin when Shirls called me a brute and a dyke because I wasn’t walking fast enough on the sidewalk. That jolt quickly subsided when she threatened to push a cyclist off the sidewalk if she didn’t move out of the way. Now she’s messing with the gays and the cyclists! Oh, it’s on.
Regardless of where you fall on the issue of nutso engagement, it’s undeniable that the whole show was great theater. At least that’s what this “unprofessional”, “dyke” reporter with an “agenda” who works for a “fag paper” thinks. Thank god for the First Amendment.
