Monday, January 12, 2015

Limited Tolerance for Intolerance: Westboro Church Protest in Oregon Ends Abruptly

by Nomad

Westboro Baptist Church is famous for its controversial protests aimed at attracting the maximum amount of attention. In Portland, Oregon, the demonstration didn't turn out quite as they had planned.  


According to the law, Westboro Baptist Church has as much right to free speech- no matter how abhorrent and mean-spirited- as anyone else. However, when members of the extremist Church showed up at a sporting event in Portland Oregon to protest gay marriage, they got a little taste of the free speech of other people. 
Several hundred angry people, actually.

Counter protesters showed little tolerance to the inflammatory Westboro message and a scuffle reportedly broke out between the two groups. After twenty minutes, the Westboro members made a hasty retreat.
The counter-protesters celebrated with dance party "complete with stage lights and speakers." 
A good time was had by (nearly) all.

Elliot Njus, writing for The Oregonian has the full story here.


Counter-protesters chased off Westboro Baptist Church picketers at Trail Blazers game, stage dance party
BuzzFeed has compiled a list of the many publicity stunt failures of the Westboro Church. Some of the reactions by the fed-up public to the Church's escapades are downright inspiring.

For example, the way the people of Aurora, Colorado locked arms to prevent the memorial service for theater shooting being used by the Westboro Church as a protest against gays.

Or, when the students from the university of Colombia in Missouri formed a human wall around Mizzou Arena to block anti-gay Westboro’s protest.

In the end, it is impossible to humiliate people like the Westboro cult. People that don't know shame are funny that way.