I wanted to ignore these jerks. I went to Central Park on Sunday to cover a real story. But, when I spotted these hate mongers from Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church, I knew I'd be missing out if I didn't at least take a few photos.
And sure enough, by the time I got home, reviewed my notes and edited some video I took for the worthwhile journalistic venture I was pursuing, The New York Times had posted a story on its Web site about these sad souls who really shouldn't have rated a mention at all -- certainly not in The Old Gray Lady.
It was about 11 a.m. when I arrived at 72nd Street and Central Park West. By then there were already more people who had stopped to watch this "demonstration" than there were demonstrators. And by the time I had crossed the street and started recording, a confrontation between one of the "God Hates Fags" types and a New Yorker who couldn't accept that rhetoric was becoming more heated.
It was an altercation like the one I witnessed that became the headline for the Times' piece... "Messages Of Hate Met by Scorn And Shrugs," or as when I first noticed it, "A Handful of Anti-Semitic Demonstrators Draw Scorn in New York City."
At any rate, I don't want to waste any more time that I could be spending on the story the Times missed. So I'll just show you the video and ask you to come back here later for the scoop.
The video is raw, unedited and shaky. But I make no apologies, mostly because the sound is good and you'll get the gist of the story by watching it. And besides, I'm a reporter, not a cameraman.
And now that I've fulfilled my obligation as an objective observer, I'd like to inject some levity into this otherwise very sad story. Take a look at this photo.
"You Will Eat Your Babies" is not a warning to fags or Jews who don't repent and accept Jesus (fags can't have babies anyway). It's actually the long-lost 11th Commandment. Here's the real story as recounted to me by one of Phelps' faithful. Moses went up the mountain, talked to God and took some notes. When he came back and saw all that awful sin he was so angry he smashed the tablets and had to recopy them from memory. And that is how the eat your babies clause got left out of the Bible. Besides, you can't trust Moses, he was a Jew.
