Monday, January 21, 2008

The Power Of Collective Action: Fighting Bigotry And Fred Phelps

What is democracy in action? A catchy phrase or something where people come together to do something good. I was in the car with my girlfriend and her dad this weekend and somehow the question of WalMart came up. Now he is of the conservative variety, so pains were taken to not bring up politics, but this one slipped through. We had to fix a headlight and he automatically thought of the evil corporation, but I subtly suggested we go to a local auto-part store. He admitted that while WalMart conducts bad business, what can one person do. Well I agreed, not much, but for me it is the principle of the matter and I choose not to shop there. In the end, we went local, and that was one less sale for the Walton family.

Now imagine millions of people making that choice, then something starts to happen. Well it hasn't yet for WalMart, but something good did happen today for a family that lost a child in Iraq. Despite their heartbreaking reality, Fred Phelps' hatemongers came out to disrupt the funeral because they believe this is punishment for America's acceptance of homosexuality. Their day would have been made worse if the family saw these terrible people, but then, something happened.

From DailyKos:

When I pulled up to the stop light in front of the funeral home I could hear them from across the wide road, singing their bastardized version of God Bless America, it’s the one where they sing “except fags” all kinds of other epithets. I remembered the documentary about Phelps from a few months ago where the bikers would rev their engines to drown out Phelp’s crews singing and chanting. 
It occurred to me, there were no bikers.

The Phelpsians we’re just too loud for my tastes. Then I remembered a couple of immutable truths I learned from ten+ years of touring in a rock band: (1) music can save a life and salve a soul and (2) the power of wattage is louder than any heckler.

So, I drove past and came back to a stop in front of the Phelpsians, still chanting their brand of hate, still too audible. There I was stopped just six feet from them, between them and the funeral home, and something WIERD happend to my car; all the windows rolled down, the stero turned up as loud as possible, and Minor Threat’s 1983 album Out of Step was BLARRING from my car. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, so I just turned on my hazard lights and waved people past me.

Then another thing happened, a guy driving a big box truck pulled up in front of me and parked. Blocking the view of the Phelpsian’s from the cemetary. He gave me a thumbs up from his window while Ian McCay sang “Think Again.” Then, I noticed the car behind me hadn’t moved. I was afraid he was upset at me for blocking the intersection. But I realized he had his hazard lights on too. He was waving people on around us. People drove by and layed on their horns, more noise. I saw the procession pull in to the funeral home from the other direction, and as the music in my car faded I heard something - the Phelpsians were silent. They’d stopped singing, stopped chanting and just held their signs for no one but me, the guy in the box truck and the guy behind me. Three people who I think already know, God doesn’t hate fags or dead soldiers, just Phelps does.


That my friends is citizen action, individuals can come together and do something good for the collective. It's worked before, it can work again and again if we don't become too cynical. So keep believing and you'll see more mitzvahs like this all over the country and the world.