Fred "God hates Fags" Phelps, the man famous for picketing funeral of people who have died of AIDS and the Matthew Shepard funeral, arrived with his little group to protest the first day of school at Harvey Milk High School.
There are a lot more anti-Phelps protesters -- we arrived at 7:30am and there was already a huge crowd.
I have a gallery with a few photos I took. Highlights of the morning:
- The crowd cheered the school kids as they walked past us to enter the school.
- The Police actually moved the barricades to give us more room, and put us closer to the Phelps gang across the street, when the "FAGS FDNY" and "Thank God for 9/11" signs appeared. I'm sure they also appreciated it when the Phelps people brought out the American flags to stand on.
- Someone yelled out, "Love the purple jacket, Fred!"
- Around 8:15 black towncars arrived and took most of the Phelps people away. They used a car service!
- There was one heavy guy on the Phelps side wearing a Twinkie box as a hat.
- They used printed lyrics to help them out while singing.
- There was a big garbage truck next to them, being loaded with demolition debris, for most of the demo. When it left around 8:30, people yelled, "Hey! Your ride is leaving!"
I'll be back there at 3:00 when the kids get out of school.
Here is what I wrote when people started screaming about segregation and "the gay high school."
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Updated: James's post and photos are up too.
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Updated again -- I'm in the photo at the top of the MSNBC article -- the blue and white striped shirt.
sean
To where do I -
a) send money to help fund a private security force that would protect those students
and
b) courier letter bombs in order to maim/extinguish Phelps & his sorry squad of reactionary invertebrates ?
The man is evil incarnate.
sean
(NB - I was so angry during that last commenting episode that I incorrectly entered my URL....calmer now, it has been properly entered..)
Mac
I hope Fred Phelps dies a slow and painful death. But before he does, I hope he gets indicted on some crime and has to spend some serious time behind bars where he will spend his last years being raped by his roommate Bubba.
Publius
I walked by Harvey Milk this morning. Maybe you can explain something that I couldn't follow. What was the "FAG-FDNY" sign supposed to mean? I saw it and couldn't understand if they were trying to say that the FDNY is full of gays (seemed like an unlikely statement) or something else (but what?).
Same goes for the "Thank God for 9/11" signs.
I may not be the brightest bulb, but it seems to me that political slogans aren't too good if your average passer-by can't understand them.
These clowns are not only hateful, they're also obscure.
p
MattS
Fred Phelps is getting exactly what he deserves: the just integration of gays into mainstream America. Ha ha, Fred.
barry
Hi, Publius. I think one shouldn't try to be too logical with them, but here is my take on it. If they believe that 9/11 was God's just punishment, I guess the FDNY was bad for interfering -- trying to save lives, etc.
Given the fact that the FD has only one out fireman in it, it's a pretty funny statement to me.
barry
Sean, I thought it would be more upsetting to be exposed to Phelps "in person", but the whole day was pretty inspiring. He and his followers were so ridiculous that the crowd, and the police, were generally quite amused rather than upset. Also, we could barely hear anything they said because our side was much bigger and louder.
The kids were amazing. At one point one of them yelled to them, "You're over there all alone and we're hear with a family and a community. That's why you'll fall."
Melissa O
I assumed that the "FDNY Fags" sign had to do with Fr. Mychal Judge, who was gay.
But who knows what goes on in the minds of those assholes?
barry
Melissa, you may be right. There was such a "through the looking glass" quality to everything they did that it didn't occur to me to think of Mychal Judge.