On Sunday, November 9th, 2008, over thirty radical queers from around the Midwest disrupted the sermon of a notoriously anti-queer and anti-choice megachurch.
The Mount Hope Church is a deplorable, anti-queer megachurch in Lansing, Michigan. The church works to institutionalize transphobia and homophobia through several repulsive projects including organized ex-gay conferences and so-called hell houses in Halloween, which the faithful used to scare children with images of ghoulish abortionists and sodomites.
That afternoon, a small group of folks dressed in pink and black, equipped with a megaphone, black/pink flags, picket signs and an upside-down pink cross began demonstrating outside the church. The group was extremely loud and wildly offensive. The demonstration drew a majority of Mount Hope’s security staff outside to watch them.
Meanwhile, with the guards pre-occupied by the distraction, over a dozen queers had put on their Sunday-best and infiltrated the church’s congregation. At the signal that the guards had been lured outside, the infiltrators sprung into action.A group stood up, declared themselves fags, and began screaming loudly. Upon hearing the loud interruption, other affinity groups went into action. A team that had been hiding under the pews in the closed-off balcony dropped a banner and pulled back the curtains to reveal “IT’S OKAY TO BE GAY! BASH BACK!”
Another faction rose to chant, “Jesus was a homo,” while flinging pamphlets, glitter, and condoms into the air. As ushers scrambled to collect the condoms, two women moved toward the pulpit, where they launched into a lusty kiss.
When asked why they did this, one of the members said, “We’re not trying to change people’s minds, we’re not trying to bend straight people to give us freedom—we’re fighting back. We’re going to stop them from preaching hate, stop them from creating an environment that’s unfriendly to gay, queer, and trans* people. We’re not going to be nice about it because they sure as hell aren’t being nice about it.”
If this is legit, that is fucking awesome!
