Reply #27: this may be true...

[Neecy]

And I have no doubt that there are many decent people in Topeka who took a stand against discrimination. But Phelps really does help expose the sordid underbelly of pure hatred that drives legislation such as this.

I have a bit of history with the Phelps family. In the mid 1990's, a friend and I discovered that his grandson, who was attending Kansas State, had on his K State server space a 'god hates fags' type of site. We contacted the student newspaper and since my sister belongs to the Kansas State Alumni Association we set them after it (always potent to use the alumnis - they need their money). One might think that the conservative campus of K State would either ignore or excuse this site, but it was so hateful, so disgusting, that it made people rethink their positions. KSU refused to take down the site, claiming free speech rights, and we kept at them on the basis that taxpayer money was funding his hate speech and he was completely free to pay to host his site elsewhere (although, interestingly enough, most hosts will not allow hate sites on their servers- but KSU felt free to do so). While KSU didn't back down, enough heat was apparently generated on campus that the Phelps grandson took it down on his own volition. My point being - that while it took a couple of liberal Californians to point out what the Phelps spawn was doing, once the content became known we had a huge number of allies amongst people who ordinarily wouldn't have cared only because the message was so extraordinarily hateful. So, in an odd way, Phelps does serve our interests in that he shocks people into awareness.

Good job, by the way, on your work in Topeka. A big hug and pat on the back your way The fight is never over.