Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Effective Counter-Protest at Comic-Con

Prior to Comic-Con, a group of Baptists announced their intention to protest.  Okay, it's America, free expression is a right.  What exactly were they protesting?  Oh ... idolatry.  *ponder*  They actually had a point in terms of pouring energy into an image to give it power, although most comic readers would not use the terms "idol" or "worship" in reference to comics.  As we shall see shortly, however, the power and the images may have actually played an active role in this event.

So the Baptist protesters showed up to find ... a fannish counter-protest.  A horde of fans, mostly in costumes and waving magnificently creative signs, demonstrated in favor of diversity and whimsy and good plain fun.  The Baptists quickly left.  There was no violence -- the fans simply weirded them away.  Highly conservative people evidently are not comfortable with brightly colored spandex and signs that say "God Loves Gay Robin."


One of the guest speakers also posted an account of the convention, with a mention of the protest and counter-protest.

Two interesting things occur to me here: 

1) On a practical level, this counter-protest worked.  It is therefore worth remembering in case other groups need to stage a counter-protest later.

2) According to Huna, or Hawaiian shamanism, "Energy flows where attention goes."  Comics are popular; lots of people read them.  Many of the characters are based on archetypes.  A few are even based on deities.  (Note the Thor  sign reading "Odin Is God.")  A prevailing theme in comics is justice: the idea of fighting to make the world a better place.  Suppose we consider for a moment that there might be something to the idol-worship concept.  We have a bunch of people pouring their attention into symbols of justice, valor, and good; those symbols can sometimes take on a life of their own and deliver a boost when invoked.  When challenged, those comic fans dressed up like their heroes and stood up for what they believe in.  So in other words ... they did something heroic.  And it worked.  And nobody got hurt.  That is made of 100% gold-plated WIN.
Tags: activism, fantasy, magic, networking, news, spirituality
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  • 42 comments
...go 3 levels up... Expand
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Well...

ysabetwordsmith

July 23 2010, 23:57:12 UTC 10 years ago

>> I'm not saying you can't call them 'The Westboro BAPTIST Church', but they are not "Some Baptists." <<

As far as I know, their church is a legitimate Baptist church. If they are fraudulently calling their church Baptist when it's not registered as such, that would be different. But if the Baptists want to disavow this group's behavior, the way to do that is kick them out of the Baptist church list or however it is that Baptists are officially counted as such. Then they wouldn't be Baptists anymore, unless they went and joined some other Baptist church. If their church is a valid Baptist church, and its members call themselves Baptists, then they're a Baptist group. They're not the only Baptists, not ideal or particularly good Baptists, but it's not fair to crop the data and say they aren't Baptists. Yes, they make other Baptists look bad. It does rather highlight how far Baptist standards can be stretched.
tyskkvinna

Re: Well...

tyskkvinna

July 24 2010, 03:08:04 UTC 10 years ago

For what it is worth, on Wikipedia they are mentioned as being an "Independent" church with having no official conventions or relations with the Primitive Baptists. They have officially disavowed WBC.

I am not familiar enough with the Baptist church as a whole and how they arrange things, but it seems very clear to me that they are not in any "official capacity" a Baptist Church. They are simply a church that labels themselves as such.

It would be interesting to see if the Primitive Baptists have any way of fighting this, legally. It would make for a very interesting battle.
ysabetwordsmith

Hmm...

ysabetwordsmith

July 24 2010, 03:22:49 UTC 10 years ago

So they're ... potentially? ostensibly? allegedly? self-proclaimed? Baptists. Not sure how to word that.

I agree that it will be interesting to see if the larger body of Baptists decides to take legal action against this group.
wolfbrotherjoe

Re: Hmm...

wolfbrotherjoe

July 24 2010, 11:32:07 UTC 10 years ago

There's no real recourse for them to pursue this in a legal matter. They've done all they can. The Westboro are not *official* Baptists. They're not part of the Baptist faith, they're not part of 'the group'. They're a wholly separate organization that happens to have a similar-sounding name.

These are all facts. The question is: what do you choose to do about it?

Do you choose to facilitate misunderstanding and miscommunication by calling them merely 'baptists'? Or do you choose to facilitate understanding and proper communication by calling them by their proper name and title?