Ignore or Engage?

Last night my daughter called to talk to her brother with an unusual question:

Who were those people dressed like fairies outside of your high  school?

Seems Westboro Baptist Church has been making the rounds in Omaha. Yup, the “god hates fags” people targeted a high school for the unforgiveable sin of putting on the school edition of Rent (last month) and having a Gay-Straight Student Alliance. My daughter was in the group of students that put together that alliance. I am pretty proud of that.

Other high schools in the area have been targeted recently. The schools know when the protesters are due, since they are “kind” enough to post a schedule online (Academy Awards, you have the next one). The local schools have not engaged the protests; I guess fairies are like trolls and go away if you withhold food. Or publicity.

No mention made of the activity on the local news or in the paper this morning. Maybe if we ignore them they will go away. Maybe the schools have it right. I just hate to do that; when we do not actively fight hate and ignorance, I feel like we give it approval. Writing this blog may be the wrong thing in the eyes of some, but I feel better letting the world know that at least one family at our high school disagrees with these bigots.

Note: I included the link to the church’s website above, but I don’t recommend clicking on it unless you want to see a whole lot of offensive ignorance in full-color html.