[Previous counter-protest to Westboro event. Photo cred - Brian Chilson]
This Friday, November 28th, 7pm-8pm, at the Havana Theatre in Vancouver, B.C., there will be a Pastafarian counter-protest to the Westboro Baptist Church protest at the same location.
For those who do not know, Westboro Baptist Church is a hate group out of Kansas, best known for picketing funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq War. From wikipedia:
The church runs numerous websites such as GodHatesFags.com, GodHatesAmerica.com and others expressing condemnation of homosexuality, Roman Catholics, Muslims and Jews, as well as populations it believes are supporting the aforementioned groups, including Chinese, Swedes, Canadians, Irish, British, Mexicans and Americans.
A few weeks ago, the Central Arkansas Pastafarians staged a counter-protest to another Westboro Baptist Church event, causing it to be cancelled. The picture, above, is from this counter-protest. Read more about it here.
Please come if you can, and help put these assholes in their place. Please be civil, we are simply countering their protest with one of our own – don’t get arrested or cause bad press for Pastafarians.
Please spread the word. Dress in pirate regalia if you can. Take pictures.
What: Pastafarian Counter-Protest to Westboro Baptist Church hate event.
When: This Friday, November 28th, 7pm – 8pm
Where: The Havana Theatre in Vancouver, B.C.
1212 Commercial Drive Vancouver, British Columbia
Contact: Pastafarian Ben – he is the man behind this operation. You can reach him at: tremblay47@gmail.com
*NOTE*
What exactly is the Westboro Baptist Church protesting? On Friday, the Havana Theatre in Vancouver is staging a play called The Laramie Project. The Laramie Project is about the reaction to the murder of a gay student named Matthew Shepard in 1998. Matthew Shepard was beaten to death by a hate group because he was gay. He was tortured, tied to a fence and left to die. The Westboro Baptist Church contends the actions were justified and is protesting the play.
In their press release for this event, WBC says “Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for ten years, with eternity left to go on his sentence – without appeal, parole, or time off for good behavior. All else about Matt is trivial and irrelevant. You may join him soon. Deal with it.”
So, who’s coming to ruin Westboro Baptist Church’s day?
Important message from the comments:
If anyone does go, be very careful – Phelps LOVES to antagonize people into physically attacking him and/or his followers, and then sues the hell out of them.
If anyone does go, be very careful – Phelps LOVES to antagonize people into physically attacking him and/or his followers, and then sues the hell out of them.
When Phelps came to Greeley, Colorado, a local group dressed in white and wore big white wings on their back and surrounded Phelps’ group and sang for hours on end, drowning out Phelps’ “God hates Fags” routine. The wings effectively blocked people’s view of all the hate signs Phelps had.
Believe it or not, that all went off with no incidents.
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Would love to attend but i live in Belfast so could be quite the challenge. But damn right about this, have read about this Westboro thing and it is just pure hatred and wrong on so many levels. Pastafarians untie….Unite!!!!
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This is awesome. Finally we can work together to provide something good for the planet. If I lived anywhere close I would love to go
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We should set up something for the inauguration of Obama…because you KNOW they are going to be there.
Mare
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It’s a little far for me to come from the UK, but I will be there in spirit!
Good Luck my Pirate chums :)
RAmen
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Good, I wish I could come, but I am stuck in Texas for the holiday season. Put them in their place. They have no right to harass people for being open about their sexuality.
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1212 Commercial Drive Vancouver, British Columbia
I will muthaf*cking BE THERE. Who is organizing? Is there an event posted somewhere, a message board? What should our signs say, etc?
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Good luck to all who attend!
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http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=49826558960
Facebook event for the counter-protest
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Jolly Bloger, here’s the Facebook group organizing it: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33191679236 If that doesn’t work, search on “laramie project” in facebook.
By the way, the Facebook group is starting their event at 5pm.
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I’m so there! I live in Seattle so it’s only about a 3 hour drive… count me in!
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How about setting up a stand with free spaghetti? They’d get a free bowl and a nice pamhlet so the people would have something to read while eating… I’d guess that if someone set up an account where people could donate, you’d have the spaghetti funded all the way.
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Protest extra hard for me! I am in Alaska and cannot make it this time. These people make me sick.
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Blessings be upon all who undertake this holy work. But no smiting!
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RAmen! I wish I could be there,I have no plans/obligations from now until Monday morning, but totaled my car recently so am restricted to locations close enough to bike to. Anyone going through Bozeman, MT wanna pick me up?
P.S. I love the idea of angels with wings to block out the hateful signs… what if we made huge pirate ship cardboard cutouts? or used bedsheets for “sails”? Would be more pastafarian-style than angels.
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I will definitely be there in spirit. Good luck on the counter-protest.
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Wow I so wish I could come. We touched briefly on The Laramie Project in my theatre class this semester and the way it confronts this vicious hate crime. My level of disgust in the Phelps clan has just doubled reading about their planned protest. Does their evil know no boundaries? Good luck to those attending the counter-protest, do us proud!
RAmen
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Please, for FSM’s sake, someone get some pictures of the event! I would just love to read all about it, and see the pics!
WBC are so evil! But they love it when people pick on them, ‘cuz then they can play martyr. So please don’t give them the satisfaction, even when they ask for it. (and they will!)
Blessings be to all who attend! Ramen!
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I really want to be there and help, but I’m too far away. Damn.
“Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for ten years. You may join him soon. Deal with it.” -How can anyone be that horrible?! I F***ING HATE THOSE HOMOPHOBES!!!
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A homophobe is a person who hates gays, right? (I didn’t want to use the term incorrectly…)
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I like this- all these people who have seen the TRUTH can find a way to act for good, something never envisioned when young Henderson set it up.
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Fuck those westboro baptist assholes! They have protested aganist our brave troops at their own funerals. And now they want to protest homosexuals too? Oh, FSM I wish I could be there, but I will be there in spirit.
And they are from Kansas too, see why we can’t let ID in the schools?
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Good luck with them, guys. If I wasn’t stuck on the wrong side of the continent, I’d be there with you.
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Love that you guys will be there! Thanks so much for doing this. Hope you have a blast and make these people look like the hateful fools that they are.
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What the hell? (’hell’ used purely as an exclamation, not in a fires-of-damnation reference) Just looked at that ‘godhatesfags’ site. It is unbelievable what people are doing in the name of ‘God’. The most disturbing part is the people smiling in photos holding placards advertising a whole lot of hate and damnation (for everyone except themselves). And if your printing bulk-lots of hate-posters, a spell check could be good. ‘Feces’ is meant to have an ‘a’ in it. If you really want to know the context, you’ll have to check it for yourself.
Cheers pastafarians- the pity is the pastafarian satire is more sane than what is considered ‘real’ religion in this world.
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I go to school with many of the Phelps children…It’s really hard sometimes to act civil toward them. However, it is sometimes fun to pretend flirt with them, it pisses them off to no end.
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F’ing RIGHTS!!!!..I mean YARRRRRRRRR!!!!
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If only I could be there. The 2 tablets that the 10 commandments were written COULD double as a makeshift planks. =D
Best of luck, fellow scallywags!
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I will be there in spirit guys, i wish those guys would try something like that over here in australia, our laws are a little different, and those guys would end up in jail.
also, love is love. no matter who. no matter where.
WBC really needs to understand that.
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I’m here, I’m not queer, but I will have no fear, and I’ll be happy to take some photos and laugh at the WBC.
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I’m trying to organize us a bit..
I’ve got a facebook group up to try and see how many I have coming out.
Unfortunatly, only 3 (including me) will be coming as far as I know.
If you don’t have facebook, email me at tremblay47@gmail.com and ask/inform me of anything you wish.
Any attendance is great.
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I would LOVE to be there :-(
Can’t afford it, but if you guys are ever near Austin, TX or Huston, TX (I live in College Station, TX and it’s right in between the two) then someone pleas let me know…shamarh@neo.tamu.edu
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Good on you! Way to stick it to them no one should be as tight as those people! Great job!
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We must all unite, be we pasterfarian, christian, jewish or any belief to put these people in their place. Together we will manage something, showing these people that their view is shared only by a very small number of people
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Way to go guys! I live a few states away so I will not be able to attend the cause, but I shall toast ye with me heartiest grog! Show those morons up!
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A good day to be a pastafarian AND a Canadian!
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This is a great idea! I’m not a pastafarian, and I’m not in BC, but more power to you! :)
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good day to you all. I am a devout christian but even I think this is over board. I don’t hate gays, I pity them. I mean really, they die and they go to hell. Shall we say good riddens or shall we weep for those who don’t know God? I do not like any of you or your God mocking,hellbound attitudes, nor do I like gays,muslims,etc. But condoning murder, even the murder of the wicked, is unacceptable. We should be known for turn the other cheek, not the Inquistion. P.S. no “oh my God he’s back” posts
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I wish I could be there. But I wish good luck to my fellow citizens in B.C.
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If I could I would but I am stuck in Edmonton.
In grade 12 I took part in our production of The Laraime Project and when I did it was the first time I had heard of Mr. Phelps and ever since not as a homosexual but as a human being with a sense of decency I feel sick to my stomach whenever I hear about this horrble example of humanity. However I am glad that those who stand behind the idea of the FSM do so in a peaceful manner because that makes us so much better than those who use anger and violence.
Never forget Matthew Shepard and all those who die everyday in the name of stupidity.
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God made everyone, all races, all areas of the world, mankind can choose to do the worng thing, but being gay is not wrong, and it is not a choice. If God did not want gay persons on earth, then he would not have created them. I hate religion, but I love God.
Mankind has always used “religion” to be what they want. It seems to most often wind causing hurt, war, death, etc…
To the “devout” that “pity” gays, check your own life, I am gay and was in a seven year relationship, never once cheated. I went to a baptist high school, the pastor, stright devout judgmental pastor had a 21 year affair behind his wifes back that finnaly came to light, oh but he prached against the gays…
Your life is between you and God, no one else, as is mine.
Stop hating and start trying to help others. God made us, he loves us and wants us to live good kind lives.
That’s what I think anyway…
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Hello again, Christian.
The correct form for your statement in post #37 would be for you to say that you believe they (gays) die and go to hell. For you to state that as a fact is incorrect. Hell, the fire and brimstone version that xians are so fond of threatening the rest of the world with, was dreamed up by Virgil and embellished by Dante. The xians then glommed onto it as a great way to scare more people into signing up. This link
( http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/tbhell.html ) will take you to a paper published in 1855 that thoroughly examines and soundly debunks the idea that the bible ever propounded a doctrine of hell as a place of eternal torment. It’s really too bad that the xian tactic of discouraging any type of questions about their dogma has eradicated your (and many others’) ability to reason and to question anything about xianity. Questioning something does not necessarily mean you have to decide to dismiss it, it means you want to be sure about it. Long ago I started questioning the xian fables that I had been fed as fact, and my reasoning led me to conclude it was a bunch of hooey. Who knows, if you examined your belief dispassionately, you might conclude as I did, or you might not. If you never make the effort to discover why you believe as you do, then in my opinion you are little more than a robot. Your narrow mind allows you to consider only one set of possibilities. Do you know the thousand names of god? No, you only know one, and you deny even the possibility that others may have found a different path that is equally valid. No one is hellbound. There is no hell. We pastafarians do not have a “god mocking attitude”. We merely defend our views and opinions from those who come here and mock us. If you attack me with a sword, I will defend myself with a sword, and because I have the courage of my convictions, I will win. I will also win because I have a bigger vocabulary than those who attack me, and because I can spell. (Riddence. See?) You need to learn to accept others’ viewpoints as valid to them, even if you choose not to accept them as valid to your own life. One of xianity’s primary rules is the doctrine of forgiveness. Not only that the xian god forgives xians who say they’re sorry, but that a good xian forgives his fellow humans for whatever faults they may have, which presumably includes the fault of being a pastafarian (or a gay Muslim, or a Hindu, or whatever). Once you have grown enough to forgive these differences you view as faults, you should no longer feel the need to come here to mock us, to condemn us to an imaginary hell of pain and suffering, and to condemn others for whatever you think they have done wrong. This is the “judge not” part of xianity.
As for the dirtbag hate mongers in the WBC, I wouldn’t be upset if their bus went off a really high bridge. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t run them off the road, because that would make me as bad as they are. I’d love to participate in the counter-protest, but since I live over 3000 miles away, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. FSM bless all those who do make it.
What the heck. FSM bless everyone else, too.
RAmen
ET
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This is quite awesome. I am eager to see what happens there as the series of protests get together. All in all Pastafarianism is of the most soothing post-modern religions. Like a good bowl of noodles on the troubled soul
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@christian, post 37:
Oh my FSM! He’s back! Yuck…
Didn’t YOUR God create them gay? (atleast according to your children stories)
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Wow Christian,
You come off so caring and tolerant. It just makes me want to… want to… want to Puke! ” I do not like Gays, muslims, etc”. Your not tolerant, caring or even a good person. Your a sad excuse for an organism. Not to worry though, attitude and acceptance are not immune from evolution. Soon bigottet, racist,and ignorant ideas like yours will fade into oblivion because they are weak, and useless. Your beliefs will die out eventually and I am a young and patient person.
People will read about your beliefs in history books right next to similar myths like “Master race, a flat world, 6000 year old earth, etc.”
RAmen!!
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Fellow Pastafarians,
Sorry about the bad spellings in the previous post. I get so angry at people like christian, my fingers get way ahead of my proofreading skills and before I know it my thoughts are posted.
RAmen!!
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Christian the self-contradictory loser is back :(
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I will not spell a word wrong when using it as an example of how well I can spell.
I will not spell a word wrong when using it as an example of how well I can spell.
I will not spell a word wrong when using it as an example of how well I can spell.
(repeat 100 times)
RiddAnce. A. Not E. A. RiddAnce.
I’ll be in the pillory out in front of the courthouse. Bring your most rotten fruit and offal.
Remind me to be very careful about posting at 2AM.
Thank you for your forbearance.
RAmen
ET
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@christian
please explain why gays who have never harmed anyone go to hell, and intolerant assholes like you and hate groups like WBC go to heaven? its mind-boggling that your god is all loving and lets people who profess hatred and intolerance into heaven.
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Repent! For the Day of the LORD is at hand. So speaks the Lord God of Israel “in the last days, people will mock you saying where is your Lord and the promise of His coming.” Repent! For the time draws near. It won’t happen today, or next week, but it will come soon! Please I beg you repent before its too late. If you don’t, all l can say is may my tears quench your fires. Our LORD come Amen.
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And I thought hate was a family value. Delicious.
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