Protesting a Protest

Last week was "Proud To Be Out Week", here at UVA, with events every day to make the general student body aware of the prevalence of and obstacles faced by 'out' members of the community, especially other students. On Friday was a performance of "The Laramie Project", essentially a play written from the documentary of the responses in the Laramie, Wyoming community to the murder of Matthew Shepard. A few other universities were also having performances, I think that PTBOW is a national thing.

On about Tuesday, word got out that Westboro Baptist Church (yes, that one: the small congregation that protested Shepard's funeral, as well as funerals for soldiers and even the victims of the VA Tech Shootings two years ago) was going to come to UVA to protest the "Laramie Project" performance.

A counter-protest was organized. Anyone interested in showing Westboro Baptist Church that their hateful messages were unwanted were to show up outside the performance venue wearing black, to line the pathways to prevent WBC from preventing the audience from entering. I decided that I felt strongly enough about the issue that I went, though I've never protested anything in my life.

We organized an hour before the start of the play and lined the brick pathways, which at that point of Grounds extend in three directions. The protest-protest organizers passed out candles; the plan was to maintain silence no matter what WBC did or said, just in a line of solidarity and light. It was incredible to see so many people there, to see the radiant candles against the sea of black.

Westboro Baptist Church never showed up. A rumor spread about that they might have gone to Richmond to protest their "Laramie Project" instead of ours. It didn't matter, really, that we had no opposition. I think the overflowing support for the rights of a play to be shown, for a group of people to exist without hate, was a message in and of itself. It's a shame that we couldn't do that without an outside threat, but all the same... it was beautiful.


In the news!:
Local CBS news (check out the video at the bottom!)
Cavalier Daily (student paper)

One of my favorite signs at the protest simply said:
Love One Another
As I Have Loved You