The Park Slope vs. Westboro Baptist Church Smackdown

I just got back from the hate parade that the Westboro Baptist Church staged this morning in front of Temple Beth Elohim on Garfield and 8th Avenue. There's a bunch of shit that I want to tell you about it, but basically this was my take away:

• As much as we may bitch around here, I'm so grateful and proud to live in a community that totally gets that these people are hateful, pathetic idiots.
• These people are hateful, pathetic idiots.
• Fuck yeah, Jews!
• Fuck yeah, Fags!
• Fuck yeah, counter protesting!

I have to admit, I gave some serious thought to Jake Taylor's comment on our original post about just ignoring these lowlifes--how getting all riled up about them is exactly what they want. However, after waking up early on a Saturday morn and hauling my ass down there, I have to say: I now totally disagree.

Cause it felt AWESOME to be there on the other side of the street from the Westboro-tards with a huge, loud crowd that included my husband, my Twitter friends, BREEDERS, BALLERS, politically active dogs, adorable kids (yes, you read that right), and loads of other peeps who were all spreadin love, Biggie style, the Brooklyn way.

The police, though a few of them were semi-bitchy ("I SAAAAAID STAY ON THE SIDEWALK!!") kept the peace pretty well. The Westboro-tards were staked out opposite from the temple, across the street. There were barricades around them (and more popo), so it was tricky to get up very close. Mostly I think I was having so much fun on the cool side of the street, I didn't really try too hard.

They had all their usual signs, "God hates Jews," "God Hates Fags," blah, blah, blah. And then I saw it: BITCH BURGER.

B-I-T-C-H  B-U-R-G-E-R. All red white and blue with a burger--that had a baby in it, I think? I mean, as we all know, I'm pretty fucking well versed in these curse/slang sorts of things...but I was totally friggin stumped by Bitch Burger. I even asked a few other people in the crowd if they knew what Bitch Burger meant, and everyone else was just as clueless. [sidenote: most disturbingly, I kind of dig the sound of Bitch Burger, but FINE. I'll hold off using it again in a sentence until I learn what the fuck it actually means]. UPDATE: Bitch Burger explained! (uh, kind of).

Anyway.

That's not to say that Team JewFag didn't have a few great signs of our own:

The crowd went through a few versions of "GOOO HOME!"'s before the highlight of the morning took place.

Rabbi Andy Bachman came out to the temple steps and stood to address the crowd. He spoke of the love God had for all people, gay, straight and everything in between. He made some goofy jokes, and basically just worked that crowd like Oprah on her "My Favorite Things" show (you know, the one where she gives all that shit away and everyone hangs on her every word?). And then he blew the shofar! Right on the temple steps! It was seriously awesome to the power of sick (and yes, I did get a little teary, bitches. FIPS CARES, you know!)

Then Rabbi Bachman instructed us all to do a rated G "eff you" (my words, not his) by channeling the power of Groucho Marks for a big crowdsourced "nah nuh nah nuh, foo foo."

The best part was that for the entire time he was speaking, we all had our backs to the Westboro-tards and were ignoring them completely. They tried to compete with their lame singing-n-shit, but Rabbi Bachman was pretty much just killing it at that point, so they were left looking even more lame and pathetic than they did before.

He led us all in a pretty rockin' group version of "Oseh Shalom" before the piece-de-resistance of the morn: A FLASHMOB HORAH as the crowd sang along with "Hava Nagila." RAWK!

Shortly thereafter, the Westboro-tards packed up their hate mobiles and were on their way. The crowd erupted in applause.

Good riddance.