Crowd counters anti-gay protesters
By CHARLES YOO,
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 8, 2005
CLEVELAND — Two days after a small group of fundamentalist Christians from Kansas began a strident protest against a proposed gay student support group at a high school in the Georgia mountains, the townspeople said enough is enough.
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| Student Kerry Pacer's gay support group triggered the protests and
counterprotest. |
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On Monday morning, about 100 people showed up with picket signs in front of White County High School to counter the eight members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka who had flown in on Saturday and staged loud demonstrations against the gay club as well as seven local churches.
"Go back to Kansas!" the Georgians shouted.
Ever since a 16-year-old gay junior, Kerry Pacer, founded the Gay-Straight Alliance and asked to meet at the high school, Cleveland hasn't been the same.
She's been booed. School board meetings have been contentious, attracting media attention.
And now the Kansans have shown up, screaming insults and anti-gay epithets.
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| In Cleveland on Monday, demonstrators respond to a group of Kansas Baptists who have protested the gay support group. |
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The locals were especially livid at the out-of-towners for showing up at churches on Sunday morning before services and hurling at worshippers such insults as "Thank God for 9/11," "God hates you" and "Your pastor is lying."
The fundamentalists said the churches were targeted because they had not condemned homosexuality strongly enough.
The demonstrators' behavior upset even many in Cleveland who oppose the gay school club, such as Marcella Beasley, 79, a member of Cleveland Church of God, who is trying to convert her gay nephew because she worries that "he can't go to heaven as a homosexual."
"If they'd lived in the days of George Washington, they'd be shot for treason," Beasley said Sunday about the demonstrators.
"Ohhhh! I'm so angry I could hardly stand."
The counterprotest included members of a church in Athens and the North Georgia chapter of Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays.
Judy Davidson, the mother of a high school junior, said she showed up because she was fed up.
"They're a hate group," she said. "How can anybody listen to people who thank God for 9/11?"
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