Fighting Hate with More Hate?

As you may already know, the Westboro Baptist Church has finally made its way to Coeur d' Alene, staging pickets at North Idaho College, Lake City High School, and Coeur d' Alene High School. As a result, counter-protests have been staged by the local community and many who are passionately against the church have turned out to express their disapproval.

Now instead of going on a rant about how Fred Phelps and his family are poor excuses for human beings, I wanted to talk more about how people respond to this man and his "church". Personally, watching his pickets online and seeing the counter protests just frustrates me. Why do protesters believe that yelling things at this man and his followers will make any difference or change the way Westboro Baptists feel? Staging counter protests and getting engaged in shouting matches simply provides the media attention that they love so much. Do you think the The Westboro Baptists Church believes that they will change people's minds by protesting? No, they're goal is simply to make people angry and attract attention to themselves.

Instead of holding an angry counter-protest where the church plans to picket, why not hold a large gathering or event across town and positively protest? This would draw both crowds and media attention away from Phelps and would ultimately decrease the satisfaction he gets from making people angry. While Phelps is promoting "God Hates Fags" on the other side of town, why not hold a gay-acceptance event at a different location? If they're holding up their infamous "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" signs, people could hold a rally to thank our troops for their service.

The main point I'm getting at here is that we need to take the insane amounts of negativity promoted by the Westboro Baptist Church and turn it into something positive. We need to take Phelps' hate and turn it into good feelings. Think about this, for example: The Westboro Baptist Church consists of less than a hundred members, compared to millions upon millions of people who disagree with their views. The sad fact is that the loudest one percent of people get ninety-five percent of the media coverage. Instead of being angered about the views of the church, think about all the perfectly reasonable people that exist in this country. Personally, the fact that this man doesn't have more followers gives me hope for humanity. I strongly believe that people are generally good, and I think we ought to remember that.