Unified community will meet Phelps's message of hatred

To the Daily:

Thank you for your coverage of the upcoming community action to address Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church's picketing of this Saturday's production of "The Laramie Project."

Organizing for Unity is truly a community collaboration. Members from across the political, religious, economic, racial, ideological and gender spectrum have voiced their support and solidarity with our efforts. With the support of the Michigan Student Assembly, we have been able to completely sell out the Saturday performance of "The Laramie Project." Generous funding from the Rackham Student Government, the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs, the Dean of Students Office and others have allowed members of OFU to be trained in de-escalation techniques by the Michigan PeaceTeam. Energy and encouragement from across Ann Arbor, the state of Michigan, and indeed the country have driven our efforts to speak out against Phelps and the hate that he represents so well.

Few take Phelps seriously - his message is illogical and hateful, and certainly has no place in our community or any other. But the message, though irrational, is no less hurtful. Phelps and the WBC celebrated the death of Matthew Shepard. They rejoiced at the fact that two men beat him and left him for dead, tied to a fence in the Wyoming winter. Shepard's face was caked with blood, save for the spots where tears left trails down his cheeks - and Phelps and his group feels that justice was served. The WBC counts the days since his death as days he has been in hell and believes that Hurricane Katrina and the deaths of soldiers in Iraq are the product of America's "acceptance" of the LGBT community.

Many feel like giving Phelps and the WBC attention is playing right into his hands, but we must act in the face of injustice, or injustice will have been served. The importance of a unified, peaceful community action is this: If we cannot come together and address this most exaggerated and extreme form of homophobia and hate, then we are ill-equipped and unprepared to address hate and homophobia as it exists in our daily lives.

After the Ohio State game on Saturday, celebrate Michigan's victory and join us in solidarity outside of the Michigan League at 6:45 p.m. Join OFU in our peaceful community action to send WBC the message that hate is unwelcome at the University, in Ann Arbor and in Michigan. I hope this can be the first step of many that empower our community to identify hate and homophobia and dispel it where it exists.

The most up-to-date information on the Phelps Action can be found at sitemaker.umich.edu/OrgForUnity.

Gabe Javier

School of Education

The letter writer is the lead organizer of Organizing for Unity.