A beautiful Display of Love and Tolerance

Yesterday (02/19/10) I got a glimpse of what the upcoming generation has to offer; it was beautiful, powerful and inspiring. The students at Long Beach's Wilson Classical High showed a beautiful display of love and tolerance in the face of hate and bigotry.

The fringe hate group Westboro Baptist Church has planned a picketing tour of Long Beach and its surrounding areas. They have come all the way from Topeka Kansas to spread the word, and the word is "God hates everyone." God hates gays. God hates Jews. God hates reggae.

They kicked it off with a stop at Wilson Classical High just as students were getting out of school. The students came out, guns blazing, figuratively of course.
The "church" was completely unprepared for the 1,500 to 2,000 students, they only had only about 20 people with them. Their message of hate was completely drowned out by student's peaceful, albeit, boisterous counter-protest. They were armed with signs, voices and t-shirts all raised in the name of human equality.

Westboro Baptist, however seems a bit peeved. They added the Long Beach Police Department to their list of picket stops, saying on their website that they were not pleased with the response of the police. Perhaps they wanted to see them beat down the "angry rebel students" for effectively shutting them up. This was the response posted:

"The angry rebel students of Wilson Classical High School out-manned the sissies in uniform from the Long Beach Police Department, and they love to have it so! There were 2000+ live-for-your-lust brats and their God-hating parents / teachers surrounding our seven little lambs, while the LBPD yucked it up. You have taught your children to rebel against their maker, and so your children are lawless brutes - they make a nice pairing for lawless cops who have broken their oaths, and spit in the face of their maker. What more would we expect from a state that has, time and time again, led this nation in calling clean that which God has called unclean! The laws of God are meaningless to you, so why be obedient to the laws of man? Sounds like ancient Sodom - only worse! We have Sodom as an example of how NOT to be! The God who created this nation, and every last one of your raggedy hides will soon give an answer for your arrogant, proud sinning. We pray for California to be cast into the ocean ANY DAY NOW!"
Their hate-full website

I am especially proud of the faculty at Wilson. They knew this was coming and decided use it as a lesson in applied civics. They prepared the students with by letting then know the one wonderful right we have as citizens of the U.S. is that of free speech. They told them this means everyone, even the hateful, can speak their minds... and told the students they have this right as well.

With that information and support the students of Wilson High were able to conduct themselves without incident. It could have been different, faculty could have chosen to ignore it or to simply tell the what not to do, which we all know doesn't work with teens. If the adults in their lives had not stepped up and taken charged at least one of those kids would have ended up in trouble.

This video is from the LB Post. They say the first half comes from them, the second from a member of WBC.


I think I know where I want my daughter to go to high school.