It all began while I was at New Student Programs yesterday morning stuffing envelopes. \u00a0I got a facebook chat from a friend of mine who is trying to establish a student organization to support veterans (I am not going to state his name just in case Westboro Baptist Church reads this) let me know that the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is coming to Charleston on March 23rd. \u00a0It wasn’t just that they are coming to Charleston, but the College of Charleston, the institution that we both attend. \u00a0I was both shocked and horrified by this news and did really know what the best thing to do would be. \u00a0I suggested a counter-protest and went to work on it on facebook right away. \u00a0I didn’t really do much with it initially thinking that things would go on over time and that I should just relax and stuff more envelopes, but in the back of my head I remembered what had happened not long ago.<\/p>\n
Not long ago, a girl from my high school who those of you from back home will remember died. \u00a0Her death was\u00a0tragic\u00a0and I don’t want to really go into details about her death other than to say that she was an innocent 20 year old student. \u00a0The Westboro Baptist Church came to my hometown of Marietta, Georgia and protested her funeral at a local synagogue. \u00a0I was beyond disgusted (thanks Katy), but there was little I could, as I was in Charleston and did have any way of getting home. \u00a0I had heard of hate, but nothing like this, or at least not during my life time.<\/p>\n
In the back of my head, I have always remembered the relationships that my family and friends have taught me. \u00a0Many of you will think of this as silly, but I think of love and hate sort of like the force in Star Wars. \u00a0The Dark Side is very clearly hate. \u00a0The hate that comes from the Dark side is destructive and unhelpful. \u00a0I think that of all things, love and care is what brings us together as a community and not just my community, but the world. \u00a0Hate is something that is all around the world, but overall, love will prevail. \u00a0It is love that brings order, justice, and binds us together.<\/p>\n
WBC is a group that uses the ideas of the bible and misinterprets them in the most hateful and horrible ways. \u00a0I do not think that g-d is the way they imagine him\/her to be. \u00a0I imagine g-d to be humble, caring, and nurturing. \u00a0G-d is NOT glad that soldiers are dying in Iraq. \u00a0G-d loves you whether you are gay, straight, bisexual, transsexual, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Agnostic, Buddhist, Hindu, or anything else in between that I may have skipped. \u00a0G-d created man and woman after one being, g-d. \u00a0The g-d I believe in is not a cruel one, but rather a g-d who believes in determination, integrity, compassion, and strength.<\/p>\n
What I am asking all of you who are reading this to do is to live a life of compassion and trust. \u00a0I have been reminded the last two days that the ideas and mission of the WBC is something that sickens any rational person. \u00a0Overall, remember this, we are all different, but in the end we all make up a single race, the human race, and g-d loves us all.<\/p>\n