Solution to hate groups

Nearly every day, I read about a religiously motivated act of hate or violence.

Honor killings in Palestine, a murderous militia in Michigan, a canceled prom due to discrimination against gay people in Mississippi.

But perhaps the most recurrent stories I read concern the antics of the Westboro Baptist Church.

With a Web site titled www.godhatesfags.com, the WBC is what every delirious bigot should aspire to become.

Its notorious harassment of soldiers’ funerals, its sickening displays of homophobia and anti-Semitism, and its general animosity toward anything that postdates the Age of Enlightenment makes it something out of a hate-filled fairy tale.

But despite the group’s almost campy absurdity, I still grow woozy with anger when I read about its exploits.

“If only someone could just point out the hypocrisies of their beliefs or the flaws in their reasoning,” I’ll think, “then perhaps they would change.”

But these revelations don’t happen. Noam Chomsky could give them a week-long lecture dismantling every one of their nonsensical beliefs and still the WBC would leave the room planning what color paint to use in their next “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” sign.

So how do you combat something that will never die and never evolve?

I recently learned of a new tactic that can make every public WBC appearance counterproductive to its cause.

During one of the group’s protests in Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago student Jason Connell decided to use the WBC’s presence to raise money for the International AIDS Foundation, the Human Rights Campaign and Jerusalem Open House. These are all organizations the WBC rails against.

Connell managed to turn the malevolent protests of the WBC into something positive. He calls it a “lemons to lemonade” situation.

In addition to the money he raised, Jason also arranged for community thank-you cards to be sent from the organizations to WBC’s leader, Fred Phelps.

There are other groups that have the same goals in mind as Connell. Phelps-A-Thon is a pro-civil rights organization that focuses on “channeling passion against Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church into donations to make positive change for all people affected by the hateful message being spread by WBC.” They are in the process of becoming a tax-exempt nonprofit association.

Similarly, Pennies in Protest works through the Internet service ChipIn to collect money for groups targeted by the WBC.

So, wouldn’t it be lovely if the next time someone such as Brother Jed popped up outside Woodburn Hall we didn’t just stand there and revel in his adorable racism?

I think it would be more productive if we tried to raise money for local human rights groups, which would simultaneously help worthwhile organizations and show the guitar-playing preacher how his hate-speech is actually benefiting the people he hates.

Fortunately, this movement seems to be growing, and with these strategies being applied more and more, the WBC’s mere presence will only hurt its own cause.

Hopefully things will reach a point where, if the WBC makes an appearance,  we’ll know they must really love gays and Jews.


E-mail: joskraus@indiana.edu