As promised last night, I’m posting some of the pictures I took at the protest of the “Family Impact Summit”. (See after jump)  A group of sixty or so were there to stand against the harmful witness of bigotry.  I will admit that I expected something different, some confrontation, I suppose.  That didn’t happen.  A church member approached me to see if I needed water as I snapped pictures.  I thanked  her and told her I had my own.  No confrontation, except in ideology and worldview and basic belief system.  

Speakers covered the gamut of subjects from the harm done by the bullying young, impressionable gay and lesbian youth encounter, to the moral responsibility of those who, although doing what they may believe to be truly correct, incite violence against gays and lesbians with their anti-gay sermons and speeches.  Winding up the protest with thanks for the many words put forth by the panel of speakers, Nadine Smith, Executive Director of Equality Florida presented this caveat:  “We must take with us the very clear image of who is harmed by the consequences, intended or unintended, of what happens here, of what gets preached here.   Their young people rocked the neighborhood with a christian band on the steps of Bell Shoals Baptist Church, beneath the heady imagery of a large American flag.  We held hands next to the street and sang “This Little Light of Mine.”  

All in all, I doubt anyone’s mind was changed.  I’m not even sure that was the point.  Alternative voices being heard.  Drawing a line in the sand of marginalization.  Facing down the threat that looms from the dissemination of misinformation.  Those, I believe, were the points.  And those points were made. 

Continue reading ‘Photos from Hillsborough protest’