vision2020
Re: rumor control
New to this so I beg you to forgive any preaches of
ettiquite.
Our group generally organizes on campus. It is our
home away from home. We contacted the Human Rights
Campagn for advice and this is their reply. It's also
posted on the website www.collectiveactivism.org
I'd be more than willing to silently collect money on
campus. It's difficult for me to ignore such a man on
the grounds I've called my home.
long post following:
Hi Dona and Selena,
Thanks for email. Fred Phelps is repugnant little
reptile who feeds off
media attention, and it saddens me to live in a world
with people like him.
It never gets easier, you know? Anyway, I hope he
comes and goes with
barely a peep. However, I have a great suggestion for
you, based upon what
folks in Ann Arbor, MI did when Phelps came to their
town (see article
below). They held a pledge drive and encouraged
people to donate money for
every minute that Phelps remained. It really got his
goat, if you will.
You could easily organize this, and it seems like it
would be much more
effective than a counter-demonstration. This COULD
be your counter
demonstration, and how! You could have the money go
to either the student
group, or to Your Family, Friends and Neighbors, or to
both. You may also
want to include a social services organization that
deals with HIV/AIDS,
since so much of Phelps negative rhetoric is the
vilification of those who
are HIV+. You could also have people pledge per flag
that he burns, etc.
I am curious to know what the formal response from the
University is, since
this is to be held on school grounds, no?
Dan Furmansky
Western Field Organizer
Human Rights Campaign
919 18th St., NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 216-1582
(202) 347-5323 fax
dan.furmansky@hrc.org
www.hrc.org
ANN ARBOR, MI - When the Reverend Fred Phelps came to
town, the gay
community here decided not to get mad. They decided to
get rich.
Among the Ann Arbor locales the Kansas-based Phelps
and his band elected to
picket was the /aut/ BAR, a gay-owned restaurant, bar
and community
gathering place. When co-owner Keith Orr heard that
his establishment was
being targeted, he wanted to respond constructively.
He and his partner,
Martin Contreras, did not want to promote a
counter-demonstration, feeling
that Phelps gains the most attention - and hence is
most effective - when he
provokes anger and outrage from his opponents. Rather,
Orr decided to use
his Phelps visit to the community1s advantage.
Phelps's plans to picket the bar came to light only
two days prior to his
scheduled February 17, 2001 demonstration. With little
time, Orr used the
Internet to organize a unique fund-raising scheme. In
an email message to
customers, supporters, and friends, he proposed that
people pledge money to
the Washtenaw Rainbow Action Project (WRAP), a local
gay advocacy group and
community center, for every minute that Phelps
picketed the bar. In this
way, Orr explained, the longer Phelps stayed to spew
hate, the more money he
would raise for WRAP. He and Contreras kicked off the
drive by pledging $1
per minute. Contreras explained why he felt it was
important to organize a
response to Phelps. "When I was first coming out
fifteen years ago people
told me, "You've got to watch out for this so-called
reverend from Kansas
named Phelps. He's out to wage war against the gay
community." He had been
showing up at funerals of people who had died of AIDS
with signs claiming
that gay people would burn in hell. At the time he was
just a blip on the
radar screen. But when he protested at Matthew
Shepherd's funeral he became
a national menace."
At the same time, Orr continued, "I didn't want to
give Phelps what he
wanted," meaning a counter-demonstration. "But just
ignoring him seemed
wrong." Only two minutes after Orr sent out his email
message pledges began
to pour in, not only from Ann Arbor, but from as far
away as New Hampshire,
Texas and California. The pledge drive gained such
momentum that by the day
of Phelps's demonstration - only 48 hours after Orr
and Contreras kicked off
the drive - friends and supporters of Ann Arbor's gay
community had promised
to contribute a total of $107 for every minute Phelps
picketed bar.
"When I began the pledge drive I wasn't necessarily
expecting anything big,"
Orr said. "I just wanted to give people an opportunity
to turn Phelps's
message of hate into something positive for our
community." Even so, the
size and speed of the response surprised him.
"Normally a fund-raising event
of this magnitude takes months of planning and a lot
of up-front costs. In
48 hours we raised over $6000 without spending a dime.
I was astonished."
Pledges arrived in diverse amounts and from a wide
range of sources. They
varied in amount from as little as 10 cents per minute
to as much as 5
dollars per minute. "The great thing about this kind
of fund-raiser is that
no one is excluded. People can participate at any
economic level," said Orr.
The range of contributors included neighboring
business owners, a high
school Gay/Straight Alliance and individual members of
the Ann Arbor police
force.
On February 17, the day of the protest, Phelps's band
numbered only four
adults and two small children. Instead of confronting
the hate-mongerers and
giving them the attention they craved, over one
hundred community members
and supporters gathered in the bar on a Saturday
afternoon, celebrating
while they counted the minutes that Phelps's cronies
stood outside raising
money for Ann Arbor1s gay community.
That afternoon WRAP Board member Linda Lombardini
received one notable
pledge. "A father and his young son were driving past
the bar and saw the
protestors out front," she explained. "The son asked
his father who they
were and what they were doing there. The father
stopped the car and brought
his son into the restaurant to demonstrate to him that
gay people are no
different from anyone else. When he realized that we
were holding a
fundraiser he handed his son a ten-dollar bill to give
to me."
"We view this as a form of economic containment," Orr
said. "Phelps is free
to spread his message, however perverse we find it,
wherever he wants. The
First Amendment protects his right to do that. But we
turned what could have
been a negative into a positive. This has been an
incredible
community-building experience for us. "We hope that
cities and towns across
the country will do this everywhere he goes. I get a
charge thinking that
every time he hits the road he will help us build our
communities and fund
our organizations."
Marsha L. Benz, MPH, MA
Health Promotion and Community Relations
University Health Service
207 Fletcher St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1050
marshua@umich.edu
734-647-4656
734-763-7506 FAX
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