Project: God Loves Batman

Fred Phelps and the folks from the Westboro Baptist Church are a rather infamous group of bigots and hatemongers who love to picket all sorts of events, including funerals of American soldiers.  Unfortunately we see them a lot here in Kansas City because they're based right down the road in Topeka.  They picketed my son's school about a year ago.  Now they've turning their attention to Comic-Con.  As always, the best way to deal with these people is just ignore them, since attention is all they really crave.  But Kelly Sue DeConnick has also come up with a way to turn their appearance into something positive.  This is re-posted from her site: 

Okay, so, Fred Phelps and his family of hateful bigots are getting a lot of press for their planned appearance at (or near?) the San Diego Comic Con.  The man lives for attention and confrontation.  If you see him there, don’t sneer, don’t scream, don’t confront, don’t point and laugh–DON’T ACKNOWLEDGE.   Ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore…

EXCEPT!  We need some help in the form of a time-keeper or two, letting us know exactly how long the patron saint of backwards thinking and his family manage to stand and scream in the California sun.  Then, by all means, do stare–at your watch!  Make a note of what time it is and alert the internet that they’re there/still there.  (But do it quietly and from a polite distance, will you?)  Go get yourself a cold drink and check back every now and then until we have an approximate time count.  Like… here would be good.  Or on Twitter, with the hashtag #godlovesbatman 

Why?  Because in the spirit of love, we are pledging to donate $50 to amfAR if Phelps and his crew actually show up (often they don’t) and $10 an hour additional to amfAR for every hour they stay.  And we’ll make our donation in Fred’s name.

We’d love you to join us.

(And we’d really love to be able to post a tally of how much we’ve raised.)

Repost far and wide, my pretties.

EDITED TO ADD: 

We’ll be donating to amfAR, but Sam and Ginny have both suggested the Human Rights Campaign.  Either seems appropriate.  

Looks like the WBC is only scheduled for 45 minutes.  (Lightweights!)  If that’s the case, we’ll round up to $100–but times are tough and you shouldn’t feel like you have to do the same or not participate.  $7.50 is better than nothing.  $57.50 is peachy and cute.  

There seems to be some confusion–you don’t need to be at SDCC to pledge.  We’re doing an online donation via this link.