The infamously shitty Westboro Baptist Church is protesting at a high school in Pasadena, California this morning.
Sequoyah High School is home to Louise Deser Siskel, the first openly bisexual Rose Queen who took part in the annual Rose Parade earlier this year.
Westboro members, obviously, take it very personally that a bisexual human exists and is proud to be LGBTQ, and so they planned to stand outside the school and spread their hatred to anyone who will listen.
But the surrounding community is taking a stance, with students, neighbors, and even members of the nearby church vowing to spend the morning supporting Siskel and any other students in the school through a peaceful counter protest.
Reverend Lissa Gundlach of Neighborhood Church wants to make sure students know they are there “to surround the school and the church with a sense of protection of acceptance and welcome,” according to CBS Los Angeles.
Another church member, Luis Sierra Campos, also planned to be there this morning.
“The minute that you stop and reflect and hear that adults are targeting a child, a young person, for being who she is, for being open, for being honest, for being a leader in her community, really is appalling,” he said.
So far, local news is reporting only five members of Westboro Baptist in attendance, with their idiotic signs outnumbering them by a mile.
\u201cFive members of Westboro Baptist Church outside Sequoyah High in Pasadena. They disagree with the school\u2019s liberal teaching, and the 2019 Rose Queen, who\u2019s openly bisexual, and a senior at Sequoyah.\u201d— Craig Fiegener (@Craig Fiegener) 1551110489
Another local news reporter caught a Westboro Baptist protestor on camera singing a modified version of “Pompeii” by Bastille, changing the lyrics to say, it seems, “How are you gonna be an optimist about this? God smacks your heart and you throw another big fit.”
\u201cWestboro Baptust Church member Shirley Phelps-Roper came from the group's home base in Topeka to protest the school and Siskel. She sang a version of Bastille's "Pompeii" with modified lyrics.\u201d— ChrisMYee (@ChrisMYee) 1551110106
If you’re going to drive across the country to host a five-person protest against teenagers trying to go to school, you might as well try to ruin popular music while you’re at it.
The counter-protest seems more well attended, and, to the best of public knowledge, involves less bastardizing Bastille or any other British bands, with locals holding up affirming signs and spreading a positive message over WBC’s overwhelmingly negative nonsense.
\u201cwhen Westboro Baptist pickets your workplace you must be doing something right!!! \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\u201d— Believe Survivors\ud83c\udf39 (@Believe Survivors\ud83c\udf39) 1551111004
No word on Siskel herself yet, but hopefully she and any other LGBTQ students at the school are feeling properly supported in the face of such idiotic hate and unnecessary protesting.
