I found some photos on the internet about recent picketing in front of the Key West Police Department headquarters on North Roosevelt. Maybe you have driven your car past the station on your way to or out of Key West. It's located next to the dinosaur pond on Roosevelt & Eisenhower. The photos were taken and posted by Iowapix with the disclaimer that reads "Affiliates or friends of the Westboro Baptist Church conducting an anti-gay picket in front of the Key West, Florida police department. The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is headquartered in Topeka, Kansas and was founded by Fred Phelps. The WBC is monitored as a hate group by the Anti-defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center."
The photographer gives us this description of what he saw and photographed:
"Key West is very low key. I saw nothing in the local newspaper or on the Miami television stations. From experience with Kluckers, sometimes the news media, NAACP, and other organizations will completely ignore, boycott, or avoid hostile protests. That prevents the protesters from getting the publicity that they are looking for.
The first protest that I saw was against an Episcopal Church. The second protest (one doofus) was in front of the main police station. In hindsight that may have been for the protesters own safety.
Key West has a very diverse population of Caribbean islanders, Cubans, blacks, and whites. I could envision any number of people wanting to give these fellows a real thrashing. They probably would not be safe for very long. Especially calling people f*gs or whatever else.
Because of the potential for either violence or claims that the protest was being interfered with, these photos were taken out of a car window across the width of a two-lane commercial driveway."
I sent the photographer a request to re-publish his pics, and he agreed. Thank you. A couple photos are shown above and the rest are Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here.
This morning's Key West Citizen has a front page story about the impending visit from the Holy Man himself. CLICK HERE to read the item.
He'll probably get his pictures all over the internet and maybe end up on CNN or maybe FOX. What a sad little man.
Key West is a great community made up of people from all over the world. And we get tourists from everywhere on earth. The other day the Crown Prince of Denmark was in Key West. We have our own royalty, of course--the drag queens on Duval. But we all get along. The straight men who live here are not threatened by the gays. We seem to have achieved what Rodney King implored: “Can we all get along?”
The Holy Man may not have thought out his choice for a demonstration. Even though not every tourist that walks down Duval is totally cool with gays, I'll bet you that each American male will be pretty upset with the Anti-American signs. We have a large military presence in Key West as well. It will be interesting to see how Key West responds.
7 comments:
I think South Florida and the Keys should welcome Phelps with open arms... give him a tour of what the area has to offer... you know, like the Everglades and gators, like, right around feeding time. As a matter of fact, I think it should really be more hands on... let Phelps be food for the gators. Oops, I mean let him feed the gators! ;)
I wish they would be recognized as the terrorist organizations they are. Absolutely disgusting.
We shouldn’t limit anyone’s speech no matter what they are saying. When no one follows, they will go away. Let them show themselves, for the Fools they are!
I have to disagree. Look at Hitler. Should he have not been limited/stopped? Without force he wasn't going away any time soon.
There's a line between free speech, speaking out against something and hate filled terrorism. It always starts small, just saying.
Who determines what acceptable speech is. If I want to protest the Key West city government or the Mayor, should that speech be limited? Would I be called a terrorist? Should the folks with the signs be stopped with force? The worst part of this is that we both agree that we don’t like what they are saying, but we seem to disagree on, is what freedom of speech means!
This is exactly why I do not want to limit any ones speech. Two people can have a reasonable disagreement about what speech should be limited.
You are now setting up a straw man argument.
Not going to play that game!
Key West is still a great place to visit!
I was contemplating bringing my wife to Key west for a relaxing vacation. After realizing , or at least the perception is, Key West is over-run with gays and lesbians, how am I to know where I can stay where I wont see these freaks of nature ? We can debate on freaks of nature comment, but I dont really care to see guys kissing and butch women kissing. Sad for Key west, looks like a cool place. MAybe trying to be too cool.
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