My hand was on the door, my overcoat draped over my arm, when the fax machine started up. It had already been a long day, and synod was to open that evening. The mechanical whirring sounded only like more work to me. So I stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind me, without looking back. If I had looked back, I would have been astonished by the public announcement sliding out onto the tray. First, my attention would have been caught by the bold declaration in the middle of a page already crammed with copy: "God Hates America!" Then my eyes would have drifted to the lower right-hand corner, to a hooded cartoon figure, like a Klansman, a sign imposed over the figure's chest identifying him as "Canada's Fag Border Patrol," and his black-gloved right hand, raised like a traffic cop, bearing the inscription, "FAGS."
I would have caught the banner at the top of the page, identifying the sender as Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Something may have tweaked my memory that this was the home of Rev. Fred Phelps, whose ruddy hate-spewing visage kept popping up in the aftermath of the murder of Matthew Shepherd, the young gay man brutalized and left to die, splayed on a split-rail fence, in rural Wyoming a few years ago. Mr. Phelps had taken the ensuing media attention as an opportunity to speak out for biblical truth and, specifically, for God's hatred of gay and lesbian people.
Likely, I would have trashed the thing right then and there, concluding that I really didn't need to read the fine print - of which there was plenty - with its italicized biblical quotes and its run-on sentences decrying Canada's "filthy fag agenda" and announcing the times and locations of the upcoming "God Hates America" rallies.
But I didn't see the fax as it slid into the tray. Instead, that evening, just before the opening of synod, the bishop took me aside to share the information with me, identical faxes having arrived onto the desks of two other Anglican clergy in the city.
Apparently, had I read the list at the bottom of the page, I would have seen that my own church, St. Stephen's, in downtown Calgary, was to be hit by a protest the following Sunday at 7:30 a.m., just as our congregation arrived for the first of our morning services.
The choice of parishes for the God Hates America rally was bizarre. In the first place, one might have asked, why were they coming here at all? What did God's sentiments for America have to do with Canada? And what did they have to do with Calgary?
In the second place, the route the demonstrations were to take implied a strange crisscrossing of the city that appeared physically unachievable, given the times published on the schedule and the distances to be covered.
And why these churches? Of the list of targets - which included three Anglican, one Baptist, one Roman Catholic, and two United churches - ours was the only one that made any sense. Each year, the Gay Pride parade takes place in our vicinity and, until the rallying point was changed, we provided assistance by allowing the organizers to draw electrical power from our outlets.
More to the point, we host the local chapter of Integrity, an Anglican Christian fellowship of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-gendered people that meets monthly for worship in our sanctuary. Last year we assisted Integrity's outreach ministry by paying for some flyers to be distributed during the Gay Pride parade, inviting people to join us for a service to be held in our church that evening. So we enjoy a small profile as a "welcoming" church. But the others? It made little sense.
It was hard to know how to prepare for this thing. I phoned the police, faxed them a copy of the notice I had received, and asked for their assistance. They seemed pleased enough to oblige - as long as there were cruisers available at the time. I called a few of the beefier guys in the parish, asking them to be a "presence" outside the chapel - not to interact with the protesters, I stressed, but to provide reassurance for the congregation, some of whom are elderly. I reminded my wardens of their duty to maintain good order in our worship service. I prepared a sermon that would draw out some of the implications for us being targeted this way. But still, I did not know what to expect.
Sunday morning, I arrived at the church early, the first one there as usual, having parked my car in the alley and entered by the back, unlocking doors as I went. Out in front of the church, on the other side of our low hedge, several placards were already bobbing up and down in the darkness. The messages, in fluorescent day-glo colours, were loud and clear: "God Hates Fags," "Your Pastor is Lying to You," and one that featured some sort of counter for the number of days that Matthew Shepherd had been burning in hell. I could detect the faint sound of singing, gentle voices actually blending rather nicely in the still morning air. Across the street two police cruisers sat idling, the officers inside sipping at their coffee, watching.
I wasn't sure if I should make an appearance on the street. I did not want the protesters to think they were intimidating me. At the same time, I didn't want to give them more attention than they deserved. If they were looking for a scuffle with a man in a clerical collar, or, at the very least, a shouting match, that would be one sure way to get their cause onto the front page of the papers. I decided not to give them that satisfaction. So I went about preparing for the service.
People looked perplexed as they gathered in the chapel. Outside, our two bodyguards had stationed themselves on the sidewalk, as planned. One of our members, a saint with 20 years' experience as a missionary nurse in India, tried to engage the protesters in conversation. She was rebuffed. How could she call herself a Christian, they asked, belonging to a church that was "founded by an adulterer." "And woman," they charged, "why do you cut your hair?" She didn't have a ready answer so, wishing them well, she turned into her church.
Among the small congregation that morning, I was surprised to see a man I will call Joel, a well-known parishioner, a man of deep spirituality, and a member of the Integrity group. Ordinarily he comes to the later service. But he had made a conscious decision to be here precisely because of the protest. Joel has AIDS. Most weeks he looks strong and healthy. But this morning his face was wan, his head bowed, and even at a distance I could see that his hands, clasped between his knees, were shaking.
As the service began, I acknowledged the little I knew and understood of what was going on outside our doors, and asked that we continue undaunted in our usual pattern of worship. In my sermon, I tried to make some sense of it all, suggesting a hypothetical parallel, a protest organized against, say, middle-aged, straight, white guys, a little overweight. The congregation smiled, recognizing that the description bore a striking resemblance to the preacher. What if it were any of us, singled out as the object of hatred? What would change?
As it happened, in recent months we had been struggling with the re-wording of our parish mission statement. We wanted to include something about being welcoming to all people, regardless of race, cultural background, or sexual orientation. But some people had complained about the need for that last qualifier. Didn't "all people" mean all people? Why get so specific about sexual orientation?
Well, now we had our answer. Because, if I, as a middle-aged, straight, white guy, a little overweight, was the target of people who hated me in the name God, I would not be comforted to know that I was generally welcome among everyone else. I would want to know that, just as I was specifically hated by some, I was specifically welcomed by others. The penny seemed to drop.
Sometime later, as the sun rose through the east windows, the singing outside subsided. The protesters climbed into their vans and drove off to their next target. Our service concluded without incident. I had to admit feeling pretty good about what had happened. We had refused to be intimidated; we had affirmed the compassionate God in our midst over the spiteful god of the protesters; we had offered sanctuary to our gay and lesbian members. All in all, I thought, the protest had provided us with a good "teachable moment."
But then I remembered Joel. He had nothing to celebrate that day. He remained the object of someone's hate. Sure, we had rallied, we had risen above that hate. But there was no room for smugness, not as Joel made his way home, bowed and shaking with fear. If we are to stand with Joel, our brother in Christ, it will take more than choreographed posturing and cute sermons. It will require that there be no more "him" and "us;" it will require that there be only "us."
A few weeks ago, six months after that protest, the fax machine again awoke with a whir. Westboro Baptist Church was at it again. This time its target was a popular Alberta band not known for any particular stand on sexual orientation, David Wilkie and the Cowboy Celtic, which was engaged on a cross-country tour. The whole thing seemed ludicrously unworthy of attention. Except that, on this occasion, the Klansman had been replaced. In his stead was a new cartoon character, a little boy wearing a backwards baseball cap, freckles dappling his cheeks. In his hand he held a placard displaying only three words: "God Hates Fags."
Brian Pearson is an Anglican priest who lives in Calgary.
