Good morning, Netizens...

Yesterday we were witness to the whirlwind tour of the Westboro Baptist Church demonstrations throughout Spokane, and there were a remarkable number of counter-demonstrations nose-to-nose across the street from one another. Having been involved in several demonstrations in the 60's and 70's I was not prepared for the civility and decency that Spokane's home-grown demonstrations brought to the forefront.

While I did not have enough free time to attend each demonstration, the non-traditional and ordinary news media was well-represented enough I did not feel the need to be at each demonstration.

The Westboro Church's demonstration was about HATRED, pure and simple, and their entire set of premises, anti-gay, anti-Jew, anti-just about anything you hold near and dear, which brought them to Spokane simply are wrong. They were debated in the streets by hundreds of people who were having no part of it.

The best part, perhaps, is that no one was arrested, despite a strong police presence. However, the people of Spokane told them in language that even deaf elephants understand that we had no use for their hatred. It did me a lot of good to have so many Spokane citizens, from a broad spectrum of societal and social groups, united against Westboro's hate-filled beliefs.

I cannot help but wonder will they come our way again? In their own words, they came to deliver a message; did they get our message?

Dave

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