Redondo Uni[tes]on LGBT Rights
Westboro Baptist Church recently targeted Redondo Union High School to protest its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. In past years, Westboro Church has picketed El Segundo High School, Beverly Hills High School and Santa Monica High School because of their acceptance of the LGBT community. The church’s members have also targeted this group at military funerals and other churches. With the US Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that legalized same-sex marriage, society has taken a significant step toward full equality for the LGBT community. Westboro Church’s hateful speech is a setback to reaching complete acceptance, but Redondo Union’s peaceful protest shows the Peninsula community the importance of a nonviolent protest for a just cause.
Members of the Redondo Union community including members of the LGBT club and other students came out to show their support for the LGBT community and to protest the views of Westboro Baptist Church on Jan. 11. They created signs and made a human wall that separated the Westboro Church protesters from the Redondo Union campus. Approximately 150 people came to support Redondo Union and to show their acceptance of the LGBT community.
“I am appalled by the fact that any group of individuals would target and harass minors who are just trying to go to school,” Redondo Union’s LGBT Club president Lola Chase said. “So we thought we would open their minds in the best way we knew how, by joining together with love. We advocate for love and peace in the LGBT community as a whole, and I was trying to represent it the best I could.”
California is known for being supportive of its LGBT population, the 10th highest percentage in the United States of openly LGBT people at 4 percent of California’s adult population. Due to the strong support of the LGBT community, Westboro protesters were crowded out. In a time when the LGBT community is starting to be accepted by the world, it is time for those that disapprove of homosexuality to realize that love conquers all and that their harsh opinions will not change the minds of those in support of the growing LGBT community.
“I felt as if what the church was doing was absolutely wrong especially preaching very hateful terms and phrases to such a young group of people but I am glad that the South Bay LGBT community came together to show what it means to love one another,” Peninsula’s LGBT president Ciro Fidaleo said.
The protest at Redondo Union can serve as an example to the Peninsula community of how to approach any similar situations should they arise. The fight for acceptance of the LGBT community shows how fighting for a cause does not have to be violent. Peaceful protests, signs and support from passionate people can make all the difference, as shown by the RUHS community.
“While we are disappointed that a hate group such as Westboro Baptist Church chose to picket Redondo Union, we are proud of how peacefully our students and community demonstrated their equally protected freedom of speech and assembly,” Principal of RUHS Nicole Wesley said.
