One of my favorite things to do in the whole wide world has got to be 'stupid-people watching.' A nice quiet seat in a cafe or a library, aimlessly loitering at Target, or participating in a protest against the
WBC (Westboro Baptist Church) are all sure fire ways to encounter a number of morons.
A few demonstrators at work!Today, I found myself surrounded by wonderful bikers, veterans, hippies (well, I might have been the only one), and gays. We all came out to protest the WBC, from here on out to be referred to as Turdbuckets, and their protest at the Naval Air Station here in Corpus. (I have a feeling that my blog will get tons of keyword hits for this post.)
You see, according to the Turdbuckets, "God hates fags." I mean, check out their web address. Since my husband and I happen to love 'fags' (he has officiated gay marriages and some of our bestest friends are gay) we thought it necessary to pay a visit to this protest. I think the Turdbuckets have some serious mental issues while my husband believes that the group
has to be some weird, experiemental art project. Regardless, they suck.
And they are a bunch of pussies. They never showed. Well, at least not to my knowledge. We were there for almost three hours and never caught sight of them. It is possible that they showed up sometime after we left, but no word on that.
Now, there were a few times that the crowd of veterans got a bit antsy and puffed up their chests in preparation for a fight. Actually, four times. When the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, friend-of-the-family groups (and there were four different groups present) arrived, the vets assumed that they must be the enemy so they formed a wall, trying to stop our friends from joining the protest. Each time, I saw several police officers step between the chain of leather and camouflage and the chain of leather and rainbows to calm the vets down. Seriously, the vets thought the queer groups were the enemy!
Gay pride came to join the fun!
There was a moment when the vets wanted to fight a few members of the queer community for their signs that read: Fight homophobia, not wars! My husband even remarked that he saw a vet with a patch on his jacket that claimed: Jane Fonda is a BITCH!
I understand that the vets, at least some of them, are pro-war. Me, I am not. I am a 'hugs not guns' type of girl but that does not mean that I don't support our troops. I have a cousin who is active duty and he is one of the coolest people in the WORLD. When we talk, its for hours at a time, just gossiping and talking about the world. I may not agree with the war but I support each and every soldier in it. We are free because of them. (Not this war.)
But the vets....why couldn't they actually think about why we were all there? We were protesting against the Turdbuckets, not the war. We were all on the same side. If you want to argue with the people against the war, do it at another protest. Oh, wait. Haven't they already been there, done that? Agree to disagree and get over it. We were there to do one thing and that was to show solidarity in support for our military. Not bitch and moan.
Another interesting thing was when my husband talked to this mother and daughter about the protest. They are HUGE Christians. HUGE. Well, if you know Hubs, you know that he is extremely well-read and can quote the Bible. You also know that he is not the slightest bit religious. For whatever reason, he was chatting up these ladies forever. When he finally came back over to me and our son, he was telling me how they were proselytizing to him, trying to convert him. Later on I got introduced to them while he walked off to do some filming. When one of them asked what my degrees were in (she knew I taught at a university), she replied "Oh, now I see why he is so smart and knows the Bible.
I corrected her, telling her that he did that on his own, long before me and that he has been able to quote circles around the most religious, Bible reading people since his 20s. She asked me if it bothered me that he does not believe in God or Jesus or eternal life and salvation. I tried not to chuckle but it slipped out. Of course it does not faze me. I mean, he believes in the whole 'help people if you can, be good to everyone, don't crap on people' philosophy, but God? No. She also asked "Why can't they just be Americans? Why do they have to be
gay Americans? Just be proud to be American. That is enough!" I told her that there is nothing wrong with being proud of who you are and the very reason the Turdbuckets wanted to protest our military was because, to put it nicely (you can go to their website if you want the real quotes) America supports gays and God is mad at us because of it. Yeah, I know. It is a wonder Hubby even talked to her as long as he did. And, she kept following up for more conversation. She was quite nice, just a bit misguided in my opinon.
You know she was pitying our poor little son for having parents who he would never see in the sweet, hereafter. Oh well, to each his own!
Here is our poor, innocent boy at his first protest! He'll cut ya!Hubby said she asked him if it bothered him that he was not going to heaven. His answer? No. I can't say it really bothers me, either. Besides, if he goes to hell or something, I'll just remarry.
Recap: went to protest, met some crazies, and the pussies never showed up. Just another uneventful day in my life. Hoooo-raaahhh.
Our good friend, Mike, President of the Corpus Christi Atheists. I know, who knew there was such a group? He is super cool and lovable. He's an ex Mormon so he has (and is bound by some built-in, divine do-gooder trait) come to our rescue (read: stalled car at the beach) and has been a super fun friend.
A kid we stopped along the way.
This was just a small section of protesters. A line of bikers this dense went on for a mile on either side of the roadway. Got Spirit? Yes, we do! They were lovely and nice to me, the girl with the baby on her back.
