Adolescence By Day

Honestly, right now I'm pretty proud of my town, pretty proud of how we've come together so quickly on this...awfulness. So here's the (still developing) story. A friend of our's son was a soldier in Afghanistan and unfortunately he was killed during the last week or so. His funeral is tomorrow. Today we found out that we may have some very unwelcome guests. You may recognize them from their hateful website. Yep, that's right. Although it hasn't been completely confirmed (different sources saying different things), we have heard they may actually be flying up here to protest the funeral. I can't express all the feelings I had when I heard about this this morning. Hatred, disgust and sadness..nausea. Then I thought 'What are we going to do about this?' Luckily, some people were a few steps ahead of me.

Someone who worked at the office called a few of the most organized activists, who I know will get a lot of people there. My mum called the radio stations, who have promised to talk about all day if they do show up, as well as other media. In her own words, "The military wives and biker networks have been activated." They'll get a welcome they will never forget. I don't think they counted on my town being like this. Honestly? I didn't think something like this would happen either. I'm glad we can do this for one of our own and I'm glad that the family is feeling better about the memorial being more protected from the bigots. I'm so proud of my town for this. Even if they don't come, I'm glad that their will be people there to celebrate the life of this fallen soldier. I know the family very much appreciates it.

What these people do goes beyond political/religious/whathaveyou boundaries. It goes against human decency. I can't believe that America, for all it's troubles, can stand for this sort of hatred and intolerance (though that isn't a strong enough word for it). I am heartened to know that even in my very red state and town, we aren't going to.

[More to come later and tomorrow, as it happens. If they do show (I'm hoping not), there will be pictures and a post. Please link if you can, these people have fallen out of the spotlight for now, but they're still out there and I don't want people to forget. Thank you.]