Angels

At Matthew Sheppard’s funeral a radical preacher from Kansas, named Fred Phelps, picketed. He is known for his long hatred of Gays. He typically shows up at events with inflammatory signs to entice conflict and gain media coverage for his hateful message. When someone is so outraged that they take action against him, Phelps will sue them. He then uses the money to go to other places and entice conflict. If you try to directly engage him he will ignore you. One of the most creative defenses against Phelps was employed at the Millennium March in Washington DC. Phelps and his people stood on the side with their derogatory signs trying to get media attention. As we pasted, same sex couples would jump out of the march and run over and get their picture taken with Phelps and his signs as a backdrop. Thus co-opting his picking for there own sarcastic enjoyment. This infuriated Phelps and he would temporarily take down his sign to make it harder to get the picture. This of course was OK by us. I especially like this method because it uses Love to fight Hate. As strong as Hate is, Love is stronger. The angels were another great example of how to deal with people like Phelps. Rather than try to engage him the angel's wings were designed to block Phelps from view of the funeral attendees. In a passive way Phelps hatred could be thwarted. This worked very well at Matthew Sheppard’s funeral. As faith would have it, the Newark Memorial High School was preparing a showing of the play the Laramie Project. The performers in the play were already very sensitive to the issue of hate crime and when it happened so close to them they were very move. Phelps had threatened to pick it the funeral so the angels came to help. They used what they thought would be props for a real life situation. Phelps never showed up at the funeral but the media did. There is always a love hate relationship with the media. You want the murder to be covered but you don’t want them to be in your face. When the media frenzy starts they pay little attention to the feelings of the grieving family. Even though the angels set up a line to protect family from the media they lifted their cameras above the wings to get their shots. Some of the angels began shouting “stop filming” but only one camera person dropped his camera down. Angels hold a very special place in the hearts of transgender people. According to the Bible, the angels were created genderless. It seems appropriate that it would be the angels that were at the funeral to protect the family.

Angels Singing Amazing Grace angel at Laramie Project Angels Blocking Cameras