Should We Be Wary of Counterprotesting Fred Phelps?

On March 3, 2010, Washington, D.C. began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  Predictably enough, the notoriously anti-gay, anti-Semitic Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church sent a handful of protestors to denounce the decision, carrying signs emblazoned with such typically tasteful slogans as "Thank God For Dead Soldiers," and  "Fags Doom Nations."

However, supporters of marriage equality adeptly took advantage of the advance notice posted on the Westboro site; counterprotest leader Bridget Todd used Facebook to turn out a substantial crowd, easily outnumbering the small number of Westboro protestors.  Reportedly, the WBC contingent actually left the DC courthouse early.

By most measures, then, the counterprotest was hugely successful. The attendance was excellent, Todd clearly succeeded at drawing people out in support of equal rights, and the counterprotestors didn't make the mistake of taking WBC seriously.  Instead, they mocked the Church's deranged rhetoric with clever signs such as "I Have A Sign Too," and "God Hates McDonald's." At one point, the crowd launched into a singalong of Lady Gaga's megahit "Bad Romance."

But nonetheless, I'm reluctant to say that counterprotesting is necessarily the ideal response.  I have two major caveats.

To put it bluntly, the Phelps clan are media whores.  There is no way to stage a counterprotest without guaranteeing the presence of more cameras and reporters to cover their pathetically hate-filled messages.  It's difficult for LGBT people and their allies to allow the group to protest unchallenged, and doing so would likely have been a tactical error at a high-profile event like that of March 3, where a substantial media presence is inevitable. But WBC deserves irrelevancy, and in the long run, the only way to get them there is to ignore them.

My second concern is more abstract.  When gay rights supporters devote time and energy to protesting against the Phelps clan, it can have the effect of implicitly including the church in the public discourse about gay rights.  (I should be clear that Todd's counterprotest largely avoided this pitfall, which would likely not have been the case had they not taken the mockery approach.)  When and if this happens, the Phelps clan, of course, is placed at the rightward limit of the debate.

Why is this problematic?  As with many other political issues in this country, when the rightward limit of debate moves further in that direction, the center shifts along with it.  In my view, it is not a positive development for gay rights when WBC's rhetoric is so hateful and extreme that even the organization Americans for Truth About Homosexuality ("devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda") can condemn Phelps' "God Hates Fags" message as "twisted."

Granted, few in the media, let alone in the ranks of gay rights supporters, would mistake ATAH for a centrist organization.  But I would argue that WBC performs a valuable service for ATAH, as well as countless other, more prominent, gay rights opponents and their followers.  Because the rhetoric employed by the Phelps clan is so utterly beyond the pale, other religious homophobes are free to criticize WBC from the left, emphasizing their "love the sinner, hate the sin" teachings on homosexuality as an alternative to "God Hates Fags."  Having thus cast their own anti-gay views as "moderate" by comparison to those of WBC (in their own minds, at the very least), it's easier for them to avoid a critical self-examination.

In more conservative parts of the country, it wouldn't even be surprising to see these folks joining pro-gay protestors against Phelps. A typical report on a 2003 WBC protest at St. Louis' Webster University features a quote from then-senior Curtis Conrod, who said: "I don't agree with homosexuality, but I don't think God hates gay people -- that's not what the Bible says."

I have no doubt that counterprotesting Phelps can be effective, not to mention fun.  But we need to keep in mind that it's those who "don't agree with homosexuality, but ..." who are our main opponents -- and be careful that our actions against the WBC freak show don't end up making them more secure in their views.

Photo credit: Burstein! (A counterprotestor disrupts a WBC protest.)