My only interaction with the infamous Mr. Phelps was five years ago in Boise, Idaho. I had recently been spit forth from a much beleaguered cross-country Greyhound bus and was ambling my lonely way around with no particular aim; I crossed State St. to 27th and headed south into town. A beautiful day in late June I had my head in the clouds as I rounded a bend in the road. On the other side, kitty-corner to me, were two groups of demonstrators separated by a side street. The crowd closest to me were shaking signs and shouting loudly while the further group sang and danced around in an apparent parody of their competing protestors.
My squinting myopia kept the signs blurred and the general throng of noise was unintelligible until I was far too close. “Thank God for 9-11” and “Fags Die and God Laughs” signs were turning towards me and the jeering becoming pointed in my direction. The slogans and frothing hate are familiar to anyone not raised in a deep cave and certainly not to someone of my… persuasions. I became familiar years ago with the hate filled ranting of Mr. Phelps as he brought his family out from the dark underbelly of religion into the limelight by picketing Matthew Shepard’s funeral. The bilious feelings this man and his ignorant hate mongering rises in me are beyond rational words but I never conceived that I would, one day, stare him down. I realized that even from a distance I looked the part of his hated female fag with short hair, combat boots. Their nasty crowd began taunting me (about my forthwith decent into hell and the sins of my perceived homosexuality) and crossing the street to where I stood-jaw agape at the reality of what I was seeing. I didn’t want to ignore them and walk/run faster but acknowledge that there is no rationalizing with them.
While pondering my quickly approaching problem I was suddenly surrounded by no less than a half dozen drag queens dressed in billowing white gowns replete with long wings and glistening silver halos. They circled me and ran, diagonally, to a fenced in building across from Phelps’s screaming mob. I was served cold tea, met the folks who fled, selflessly, to my salvation and was invited to the protests after party. In short, I can thank Mr. Phelps for handing me over to some of the finest, gayest, most upstanding and community oriented people in Boise.