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I thought about posting this earlier, then gave up the idea. But seeing that a group of students at Penn State, protesting the dismissal of Joe Paterno, have become the official face of youth in the media tonight, I have decided to offer this alternate perspective.
Yesterday a pair of Fred Phelps wannabes from some church in Georgia came to our campus, stood on a street corner, and proceeded to declare that we were all going to Hell for crimes such as pot smoking, drinking, masturbating, and perversion (which, as you might guess, incorporated homosexuality). Legally, the man had his ducks in a row, and he was very explicit about staying within his rights so that he would not get ejected from campus. Students threw together an impromptu counter protest, complete with a bluegrass jam session. As a relatively older student, I was off-campus during this affair, so I did not really hear about it until today, in a class on "Understandings of Christianity" which all students are required to take (I know this is a little weird; it's a Christian liberal arts college, but the course is not intended to proselytize, but rat her to put Christianity in its historical and cultural context, and explore the diverse paths along which Christianity has evolved--in a nation that is 85% Christian it is useful to know this stuff).
For a bit of background, I know several of the students in this class personally, from previous classes, activism, or other activities that happen around campus. We have participated together in rallies to support equality of opportunity for the LGBT community, we have gone to the Occupy Wall Street protests together, we have planted trees on Mountaintop Removal sites, we have learned together at natural building workshops and other events. But there were others in the class to whom I did not have such a sense of personal connection. But today that changed.
See, knowing the schtick of these Westboro Wannabes, my thoughts were that they were best left ignored--their goal is to get attention, after all, and my thought was that any reaction just rewards them. I shrugged off the fact that they were here, the way you might shrug off an annoying car alarm in the distance. But one of the gay students in this class pointed out that ignoring this kind of hate is simply not an option for him; he must challenge it--crazy as it seems to me now, I had never deeply considered what it would be like to face hatred directed so strongly at you, with such an air of righteousness. Then each of the students who witnessed or participated in the events described their reactions--they described their absolute outrage, their desire to respond peacefully, what they were proud of, and what they wished they had done differently. Christians, more than one of them LGBT, challenged these clowns' perception of Christianity, using their knowledge Hebrew and Christian scripture and history.
The main thing I got out of that room today was the amount of love and thoughtfulness that those young people had for their community, and for one another. There were a lot of voices shaking, there were a few tears, there were deep concerns about whether they had allowed themselves to slip into the same kind of hate that had been directed at them, and there were comments of encouragement and solidarity from everyone in that class. As an atheist of Northern heritage fast approaching thirty, I was immensely proud of the young, southern, Christian people with such a progressive, considerate, and deeply inspiring group of people that surrounded me today.
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