Nashville’s GLBT community response
 
Photos by Brad Beasly The middle of last week we heard that a fundamentalist anti-abortion, anti-gay organization led by Lou Engle was coming to town and planning a huge silent “repentance” march titled “The Call” through the GLBT business district. We only had a few days notice that this march was going to take place. There was a lot of discussion about the best way to handle it. The owners of OUTLOUD BOOKS, the local gay bookstore stepped up and offered 50 cases of bottled water for the marchers. They also added hundreds of cups and buckets off ice water when that ran out.  We placed stickers on all the bottle that said “Love is all there is.” and included pink & rainbow triangles at the bottom. I’m sure they expected angry protests along the way but they didn’t find it. Many had red duct tape covering their mouths that had LIFE written on them. I guess those people didn’t get to taste any of our water. They didn’t say a word and you just heard this silent shuffle of 10,000 people walking down the street. It was very eery and reminded me of military processions coming through an invaded town or village. They weren’t smiling and there was no love eminating from them. I saw one guy dragging a huge life size cross down the street with a little wheel mounted on the bottom. It was a different “Christian” event than I’d ever experienced before and it felt like controlled intimidation. Arrogance in motion. There were just a few dozen of us in front of the gay businesses draped that were proudly displaying their rainbow flags. We all stood behind our tables on the sidewalk watching and offering water. Suddenly people broke from the procession and started making a beeline for a cold drink. The length of the march was long and went from Centennial Park to the Titans Stadium across the river. They had an all day revival there that was televised the same time Al Gore’s Earth Day concert was on. When they reached us they figured out we were giving away cold water and It was fast an furious from then on as we gave out water until we completely ran out. A few small groups stopped to pray “at us.” Which was weird but mostly it felt like we were running the only concession stand at the county fair. Here’s the video I made of it for you tube: <object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zURI1xWSu58"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zURI1xWSu58" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"> </embed> </object> I’ve never tried to embed a video before so if it didn’t work here’s the link to it... http://www.youtube.com/avalonfarms Click on “The Call” Peace & Love, Val JOIN THE DISCUSSION!http://www.youtube.com/v/zURI1xWSu58http://www.youtube.com/v/zURI1xWSu58http://www.youtube.com/avalonfarmshttp://avalonfarmblog.wordpress.comshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007