SAY NO TO HATE:  Tolerance Takes a Victory Lap

By Jeff Sapp | Curriculum Specialist/Writer, Tolerance.org

October 18, 2004

    The Alabama Baptist Convention held its annual Soap Box Derby at the state Capitol this weekend in Montgomery, Ala.  Excited children hopeed in their go-carts and hoped that their momentum would carry them to the finish line.

    Two blocks away a different race was taking place - a race between hate and tolerance.

    Members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., on Saturday picketed outside the Southern Poverty Law Center.  They came to “celebrate” - their own words - the recent murders of two gay men in Alabama.

    On July 18, 2004, Scotty Joe Weaver was strangled, beaten, stabbed and set on fire in Bay Minette, Ala.  His death is being investigated as a hate crime.  Scotty Joe was 18 years old.

    Ten days later in Montgomery, Roderick George, 40, was shot in the head by a man who later told the police that Roderick had made sexual advances toward him.

In This Lane

    Westboro Baptist Church is the home of the Rev. Fred Phelps and his “God Hates Fags” group.  Thirteen members of the WBC picketed and screamed their usual rhetoric outside the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    The group chose Montgomery, Ala., for their protest because it has a rich history steeped both in hateful intolerance and nonviolent struggle for equality, and the Center because of its national reputation for promoting tolerance and monitoring hate.

    From the place where members of WBC stood holding signs that proclaimed “God Hates You” they could see the steeple of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached a message of hope to a nation divided.

    But the small group of Phelps followers had not counted on the soapbox across the street.

    A coalition of groups in the city quickly put together their own event, called A Stand for Peace and Justice in Montgomery.

    More than 100 people from around Alabama came to protest peacefully.  They were from such diverse groups as the Montgomery Peace Project, Equality Alabama, PFLAG-Mongtomery, the ACLU of Alabama, One Montgomery, Alabama Green Party, Immanuel Presbyterian Church and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Montgomery.

    “We vastly outnumber the Phelps of this world,” said Deborah Little, president of PFLAG-Montgomery, urging the crowd to use the experience as “an opportunity educate.”

    One man stood as close as the Montgomery Police Department would allow and simply said, “I love you and you and you…” until he had personally addressed all 13 of Phelps’ followers.

    The music of social justice filled the air.  Someone began singing “We Shall Overcome,” a song sung many times in the streets of Montgomery.

    This time, though, an added verse filled the autumn air:  “Gay and straight together, we shall overcome…”

    One woman stood alone, focused, holding her sign and keeping her eyes on the hate across the street.  Trysti Holladay had driven all the way from Birmingham to participate.  Her sign featured a quote from Buddha:  “Hatred can only be stilled by non-hatred.”

    One man stood with a sign raised above his head:  “Tolerance is Strength.”

    These messages gained momentum as the protest went on.

    Exactly 30 minutes after they began, Phelps’ followers disbanded and walked away, taking no more or no less time than their permit allowed.

Not Child’s Play

    Hate that day had a small contingent, no match for the diverse gathering across the street.

    At both the soap box derby and the protest, there were children playing, dogs barking and people cheering.

    Perhaps that is the message at both events.

    Those who stood for love, inclusion and tolerance gathered, sang and prayed for almost an hour after Phelps’ hate-filled crew got out of the way.  It’s as if they were cleaning up after the race.

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