They’ve faced down humans time and time again, but Fred Phelps and his minions from the Westboro Baptist Church were not ready for the cosplay action that awaited them today at Comic-Con. After all, who can win against a counter protest that includes robots, magical anime girls, Trekkies, Jedi and…kittens? Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist Church, the good folks of San Diego’s Comic-Con were prepared for their arrival with their own special brand of superhuman counter protesting chanting “WHAT DO WE WANT” “GAY SEX” “WHEN DO WE WANT IT” “NOW!” while brandishing ironic (and some sincere) signs. Simply stated: The eclectic assembly of nerdom’s finest stood and delivered.
Earlier this week, I wrote about the Westboro Baptist Church’s plans to protest Comic-Con in San Diego. How a collection of nerds can be held to be a threat to our collective morality is a story for another time, but it appears that the nerds accepted the challenge…and exceeded expectations. There’s a lesson in this for all of us, I suppose. When confronted with joyless, humorless, uber-Jesus-y “Christians”, you might as well have some fun at their expense. Humor really IS the best medicine.
I’m as guilty of this as anyone else, but we pay far too much attention to Fred Phelps and his merry band of inbreds. Sure, they make a lot of noise. Yes, they’re hateful, angry, ignorant, and as judgmental as the day is long. That hardly means we need to supply them with credibility by providing them with publicity. Recently, I’ve generally done a pretty good job of ignoring them, but perhaps it’s time I stop providing them with free publicity. Nothing I say is going to cause them to re-evaluate their hateful ways…but the idea of using their lunacy as comic fodder is something I find oddly appealing.
Yes, it’s a free country, and free speech means having the right to make a fool of yourself if you so choose. The fact that I’ve been blogging for almost nine years is proof enough of that, eh? Of course, free speech cuts both ways; if you’re going to act the fool, you should probably count on being ridiculed. roundly and soundly ridiculed. In some countries, the WBC trolls would be beaten to within (perhaps even beyond) an inch of their miserable, pathetic lives. Here, those who oppose them recognize that they have the right to express (and embarrass) themselves, but opponents also have the right to ridicule them to within an inch of their lives. I think I can say with some certainty that most Americans prefer humor to violence…because do we REALLY want to make martyrs of these idjits?
Accordingly, I’m declaring today “National Buy A Nerd A Beer Day”. When confronted with hatred and lunacy, they responded with humor and laughter. Would that we could all learn a lesson from that. Lord knows I certainly could. ;-)
