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Wearing “Stand with Sam” pins

A good thing happened at the University of Missouri on Saturday. (My sister-in-law the historian taught there for a few years.)

Hundreds of students formed a human wall around the basketball stadium at the University of Missouri on Saturday because the Westboro Baptist Church had pledged to protest gay football player Michael Sam.

After Missouri defensive lineman Michael Sam came out last week last week, anti-LGBT members of the Westboro church vowed to show up at Missouri’s game against Tennessee. But a group of students wearing “Stand with Sam” pins made the extremist group’s demonstration impossible by surrounding the stadium.

Good. Non-violent, even cuddly – and it got the job done.

Bright with excitement » « Looking

Comments

  2. Wylann says

    Rock fuckin’ on!

    We can gladly say this is one fight the bigots are losing. Although, like racism, we’ll be battling the deep seated, hidden and subtle stuff for the next few generations.

  3. says

    Here’s an item from OutSports, the site which broke the story on Sam.

    http://www.outsports.com/2014/2/16/5417166/michael-sam-gay-football-missouri-basketball-fans

    Actually, you can’t say broke since OutSports (along with Sam’s agent) were coordinating the timing of his statement. It was a planned campaign. The announcement was rushed because other news sites (e.g. ESPN, SI) were going to let the Tiger out of the bag.

    From another item on OutSports:

    http://www.outsports.com/2014/2/17/5421422/colin-kaepernick-cam-newton-would-welcome-michael-sam-gay

    “I think when he steps into that locker room everyone’s going to know that he’s there to help us win games,” Kaepernick told ESPN’s Michelle Steele. […] As Kaepernick said this, Newton nodded in agreement.

    […]

    We keep hearing more and more players say things like this, basically shrugging when asked about playing with a gay teammate. These two star quarterbacks and both young and from a generation that has grown up knowing gay people as classmates, friends and even teammates. For these guys, it’s no big deal.

    The only problem people now are the coaches and GMs, but since they run the teams, it’s they who actively encourage bullying and harassment within teams, as the Wells Report shows. One hopes that is going to change now that everyone’s under scrutiny and the potential threat of legal action.

  4. johnthedrunkard says

    I know that there have been plenty of counter-demonstrations against the Phelps Phamily (in Laramie, the nationwide veteran’s/biker’s groups etc.) but I haven’t heard of ANY really successfully STOPPING the Wichita Wonders from carrying out their displays.

    How did the Missouri students achieve that result?

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