Posted on 11/15/2008 9:03:52 PM PST by TheReligiousConservative51
OK, so this account is pretty long, but it's a great read:
Tolerance is a joke.
It is. It can't be applied by any sort of significant majority (especially one that claims to be tolerant) in opposition to a minority. City-slickers to the Amish. Everyone to Ron Paul supporters. Homosexual rights advocates to Christian protesters (even if there's almost 1000 of them to four of us).
And that's why today was so much fun.
It started out with Facebook. Thanks, everyone, for telling me that this 'anti- Prop 8' protest was going on in downtown Denver (even if you didn't want my kind to, ahem, 'attend'). I had a hunch one would, but this taught me to keep a closer eye for what's going on. Anyhow, I immediately got to work, calling people to come with and counter-protest. It ended up only being myself and Andrew, partially because protests have such a negative connotation these days.
I made a great sign, it said "GO CRY in CANADA". Not simply being facetious, ask me why it says that if you're confused. There's a fantastic reason for it, besides just being an attention-garnering phrase.
So the dawn came, and after problems with my hair dryer, I was ready to go. Andrew met me at the light rail, and showed me his (brilliant) sign, which scribed on it were the words: "Californians have voted TWICE. Give it up." He asked me to add "Yes On 8" with a Sharpie, and I gladly obliged. After all, we were both giddy and a bit wary to go to this strange, strange gathering. Well, the light rail finally arrived, and we sat in front of a group that (oh, the irony) was going to the protest as well...BUT NOT FOR OUR SIDE. One girl carried a large 'gay flag' that she draped around herself like a cape. She also had a shirt with the American flag upside-down, an intrinsic sign of disrespect. We ended up following them to the Civic Center.
There was already a monolithic crowd of a few hundred when we arrived, at about 11:10. We hid our signs for a second to assess the situation. I looked around for cops, just in case the situation got out of hand (which it has before, shown by the disgusting violence and intolerance displayed toward pro-8 protesters in other rallies). It ended up getting so rowdy that Andrew called the police station to make sure they did have an assignment up here (they did, about 5 officers, all well-hidden). So we stood there for a while, not really doing much except for listening to the crowd on the opposite side of the street.
All of a sudden, this guy with a bleached Mohawk and built like a tank comes out of the crowd with a few posters. Andrew and I looked at each other, fearfully. He asked us what we were doing here. We gave vague replies, like "we're just standing around, you know..." (well, that was mine). So he asks to see the signs we have placed behind us. I'm just thinking "OK, now it's ruined, now it's all over", and Andrew tells a half-truth in that they're anti-8 signs (OK, a little white lie). So, obviously sensing something was awry, he said that he was pro-8. I probably sighed the biggest sigh of relief in, oh, a couple years. So we introduced ourselves to each other. The guy's name was Keith Johnson, member of a conservative church. We talked a bit about what we agreed about, and then Keith showed us some of his signs.
They were clever. "We won't bend over on this issue," "You may rip crosses from our hands, but never from our hearts," etc. I lamented that we didn't have anyone to take up another poster. So, we summoned up our courage, and headed over to the grassy knoll over by where the anti-8 protestors were entering from. At first, it was a little awkward; we stood there like sheep at a wolves' gathering. After warming up to the task a bit, since people who saw the signs basically just laughed and pointed them out, we stepped further into the limelight. One fat woman called us "closet homosexuals", and I made the unfortunate decision to call her a "douchebag" back. Er- my bad. After lecturing myself on self-control, we had a grand old time.
The fat woman never really went away, but we enjoyed her taunting. Others that entered would say some pretty hateful things as well, and all the while we'd respond with "God bless you, sir/ ma'am." or "You have a nice day, sir/ma'am." Talk about taking the high road. I'd never seen so many middle fingers, regardless of how many metaphorical middle fingers were given to Sarah Palin during the campaign. On one occasion, I smiled for a picture that an elderly woman took of our merry band. After she took the picture, she flipped me off right in the face. Tolerance.
The day progressed, and the crowd simply grew. So did the number of offers by the press we recieved to talk about our views and give voice to the pro-8 side. TV interviews, magazine interviews, newspaper interviews. Meanwhile, all the attention we got generated some unwanted attention from the anti-8 protesters. We assessed that it would be best to move to the other side of the Civic Center, where a large contingent of police officers had just arrived. So we walked through the road, through jeers and sneers and general rantings of intolerance. On my face a smug expression lay plastered, for I'd seen more than enough of the hypocrisy of the Left. We arrived at the other side, only to be greeted by more press members. Everything was just dandy, for about the next 10 minutes.
A few protesters (most prominently a large woman with a gigantic 'gay flag') started complaining to the press that we were taking the press's time away from the larger event. A crowd of, oh, I'd say about 40 started to move toward us, from what I could deduce, to block us out. I relented. They did, indeed, intend to do that. However, we quickly got an addition to our merry band; Keith's brother. Well, I'm not sure that they were actually brothers, more like brothers in Christ. So Keith's brother (who was majorly cool) took a sign and stood with us. We held our signs higher than the anti-8 protestors could, which ticked them off.
Our arms eventually got tired, and we decided to pose for the press and ignore the larger crowd, which had started to notice us even more than previously. After a bit of that, we noticed that from one angle, the protestors had blocked our signs with smaller ones (NOT larger ones like the RMN says, that wasn't until the end). So we simply faced different angles. Agitated at our cleverness, the protestors started to argue with us. We had to lower the signs in order to do so, so we decided to go argue at a point right in FRONT of the Civic Center, where we could argue and also be seen. The second time we went through the street, we were screamed at. Obviously, word of our presence had reached the other parts of the crowd.
There we stood, signs proudly displayed in the face of almost 1000 angry, yelling faces of opposition. I could only think to myself, "No wonder the pro-8 force doesn't want to deal with this." They screamed obscenities, tried to slander us and rile us. All the while, it was simply, "God bless you. Have a nice day." Finally, the bulk of the arguing started. It began with them asking us strawman questions, loaded questions which we refused to answer. We got some time of our own to talk, and our cool posture met with shouting and frenetic response. We got nowhere. The discussion turned from theology, to civil rights, to secularist reasons to oppose gay marriage (which I dominated). They pretended to ignore our responses, and ask the same questions ad nauseum. It seemed as if half of the crowd had turned its attention to us, instead of the horrible speaker they had at the top of the Center.
One woman in particular was very ignorant of the Bible. She claimed that because St. Paul and St. Matthew were not Jesus, and that Jesus didn't say anything about homosexuality, that it was okay. I could only laugh. Did this woman really even consider that since Paul and Matthew had traveled, lived with, and essentially and literally followed Jesus, that their opinions might just have a bit more spiritual clout than our own?
The crowd moved in on us. We started with about 20 feet in between, and now I was touching arms with the guy next to me. I expressed my discontent, as I'd seen in previous protests that this is how violent altercations get started. The crowd refused to back off, saying "now you know how we feel," as if violent gangs of straight people constantly crowd gays into submission on a daily basis. Luckily, in a bold turn of events, the march had started. The crowd moved into the streets. Andrew and I knew that if we really wanted to make a lasting impact, we'd have to act fast. So we said our goodbyes to Keith and his 'brother', grabbed our signs, and ran.
We ran past countless buildings, flying past citizens and dodging traffic (and in Andrew's case, traffic cops). We tried to calculate the parade route, and having done so, ran to the next street before the protesters got there. After an exhausting bout of exercise that gave me quite a bit of asthma (thanks to the great air we have here in downtown Denver...and by air, I mean cigarette smoke combined with incense combined with smog), we found the right place. With the sun shining down on our faces and the emerging catcalls of protesters coming just 'round the corner, we stood tall on a bench and held our messages high in the public view, remaining stalwart as the protesters veered into sight, coming our way.
Now, let me tell you, I don't hate homosexuals. I don't. It's just not appropriate in the Christian worldview to hate people. I'm not a fascist, as I believe in limited government, and I'm most definitely not a Nazi, as my great grandfather was a Romanian Jew who made it out of Germany in time to escape the Holocaust. According to these protesters, however, I was all of these things, and a great many more.
They at first simply shouted their little slogans at us and booed. Nothing too out-of-the-ordinary. I suppose they were just too surprised to see us there. I made 'crying' gestures, which looked fantastic combined with my sign (I checked in a window opposite the protest). The anti-8 marchers turned increasingly mean-spirited. Many had new signs saying "f*ck 8" and other tolerant phrases. So we let the hundreds pass and get a glimpse of the opposition. Not very many flipping us off; well, maybe just less than I expected. It was still a big number. In the middle of the march, some retarded assbag came up to Andrew, grabbed his penis, and attempted to steal his sign. While Andrew stood there in shock, the idiot dropped Andrew's sign and made a break for it before I could kick his ass.
After more incessant chanting and flipping of the bird, the marchers had gone as quickly as they had come. That was going to be the end of it, Andrew and I had gotten the voice of the opposition out and had lived the tolerance of the gay movement for ourselves. One guy on the street even came up to us and thanking us for promoting what he believed in. But then, we saw that the entire march had doubled back, on a new route back to the Civic Center. We couldn't miss the chance to do it one more time. We ran again, swiftly moving past the protest and through alleyways and whatnot. We reached another bench, standing on it, ready to exercise our patriotic duty of the freedom of dissent. The protesters had changed somehow, after our incursion. They sounded angrier, shriller. And they were marching up the street right toward us.
They came like a red streak of fireworks in the sky, descending upon us with quick ferocity. They swore and yelled obscene things, shouting and screaming and performing prurient acts at us. The intense rage was clearly in the air. One lesbian reached into her pants, pulled her finger back out, and attempted to wipe it on Andrew's face. He turned away, leaving a smudge on his blue hoody. The magnitude of the screaming was almost deafening. Marchers flipped us off in droves, threatening us and making physical gestures. I stood there with a perpetual smile, pondering if this infantile and immature behavior was all they had to offer; if so, good luck to attracting others to their cause.
In the midst of all the action, a reporter came and asked me for an opinion. It turned out that he was a journalist for the Denver Gayzette. I told him my name, taking the chance that my opinions and statements would be misquoted and then used against me. He asked me the basics, and I have him relatively secular answers. Religion wasn't a popular subject at the time. All the while, a lesbian couple started inserting their tongues into each others' mouths less than a foot away from Andrew, and a gay couple came up to us and started yelling in our faces. I ignored them and talked to the reporter, all the while asking him if he could hear me through the deafening screaming and chaos.
I saw Jessica and Stefin march past; they flipped me off just like the rest of the crowd. Forget about all the time we spent on that play, right? Well, at least they said 'hi'. I faced the crowd again, albeit a bit disappointed in them. Nick, our stage manager, also called me out and flipped me off. Ah, Nick, you joker. You were joking, right? Right. Funny what tolerance does to some people. After the worst of the marchers had passed and the reporter had thanked me and left, we were left to deal with the gay couple yelling in our faces. We argued with them, and they gave up, following the crowd to the Civic Center.
We realized that our duty wasn't over. After all we'd just encountered, all the spewing of vitriolic hate, all the obscenity, we had to go to the Civic Center, to document what was happening after the march. We ran again, after a Latino couple thanked us for protesting the protesters. At the Civic Center, the crowd had become much smaller. I assume most had gone to the restaurants around Denver, since the protest had gone past lunchtime. It was about 2:00. We analyzed the crowd around the park, and decided to counter-protest one last time. Instantly, we were swarmed with people calling us "anti-American" and "anti-Christian". One straight couple in particular called Andrew a "Nazi child", asking us if our parents had made us come here. I said, "We're college students. We do whatever we want."
The couple then got into a huge argument with Andrew about comparing him to a Nazi. Meanwhile, I began talking with a homeless veteran. This guy had come over in awe of the rest of the protesters, telling me, "I stand with you guys. You guys are right." He then attempted to mediate the argument between Andrew and the couple. The couple would have none of it, accusing the veteran of supporting "war crimes" and calling him a Nazi as well. I couldn't believe it. Then, like a lightning bolt-- my sign was snatched out of my hand. The same gay couple yelling at us after the second wave of the march had returned. They ripped it up in front of me. I shrugged, and offered to hold Andrew's sign for him while he argued.
Soon enough, some DU students had come over, not to join us in protest, but to hug us in an attempt to either prove that we were stone cold, emotionless partisans or to provide another narrative of the counter-protest to the crowd. I accepted the latter, and hugged back. They proceeded to tell us that "ITSALLABOUTLOVE". I think Andrew knew a couple of kids that came over. Hmm.
So, after the crowd cleared, we gathered the remnants of my shredded sign and prepared to go home. As we walked past any protesters left, one stopped us in our tracks. He very calmly stated to us, "I think you're a little off base on this issue, but I want you to know that I still support your right to say your opinion." Wait, real tolerance? I suppose that it's ironic how we'd only encounter that at the VERY END of the protest.
So, how do you win a protest? You accomplish what you set out to do. We set out to make sure many, many voices were not ignored. We achieved that in every sense of the idea.
Looks like an excellent read. I do not have time right now but I can’t wait to read this. Thank you for posting.
You win by being the worst thing you can be and then get reallluy, reakky angry that you are who you are.
Lawyers are optional
At a “gay” pride parade in Madison, WI I held a large bright sign that said “Homosexuality is demon possession. Let Christ set you free. You would not believe the results of that sign. I got all kinds of attention from “gays”. They liked me. They actually wanted their pictures taken with me and my sign. The Christians across the street they demonized and/or ignored.
Great thread...will mark for later read.
bttt
These people do a disservice to their cause.
It would be better for them if they had NOT marched.
Ping to read later
"So the dawn came, and after problems with my hair dryer,..."
"All of a sudden, this guy with a bleached Mohawk and built like a tank comes out of the crowd with a few posters. Andrew and I looked at each other, fearfully."
"Now, let me tell you, I don't hate homosexuals."
besides you signing up on FR on 10/10/08, you have some issues to address, imho.
Good read and great job! I swearI don’t think I could have exercised the self control you guys had. I think I would have had to have a stun gun in that situation, but in a crowd that size, that would REALLY piss them off!
I’m not exactly sure what you mean. It started with Facebook, my hair dryer was broken, and due to the intense amount of violence and intolerance displayed at these rallies, why shouldn’t I be fearful? That guy could have kicked my ass.
Stopped reading when she said that Paul lived with Jesus. Uh, no. Paul came later, and was an anti-Christian authority to begin with.
Good job! Very enjoying read. Any links to photos of you in the Denver press?
You were courageous! Congratulations!
“It started out with Facebook.”
“So the dawn came, and after problems with my hair dryer,...”
“All of a sudden, this guy with a bleached Mohawk and built like a tank comes out of the crowd with a few posters. Andrew and I looked at each other, fearfully.”
“Now, let me tell you, I don’t hate homosexuals.”
besides you signing up on FR on 10/10/08, you have some issues to address, imho.
I sure don’t get your drift, robomatik
Great post TRC51. Reminds me of some time I spent in Austin,TX at an antiwar protest. What would make this even better is if you could have managed to get some video of these ‘preachers of tolerance’ reviling you.
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