Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (1)
*whew* That was intense... well, I don't know if you all have been reading the media reports (if you haven't, just search "equality ride" on google news and you'll get a bunch of stuff, video included. I recommend the Washington Post article on the front page of the religion section), but I guess you can find the general outlines of what happened at Liberty University yesterday pretty easily, so I'm going to tell you about my experiences in the last couple of days.
Thursday evening we went to First Christian Church, where we had a lovely sending service including prayers and songs and a candle lighting ceremony. Jake's parents lit candles for us and gave us a speech on behalf of all our parents and said they were so proud of as their children and the future of the world. It was very moving. More crying. This was especially appropriate because earlier that day one member of a group got a call from her father, who had seen an article about the ER in the local paper. He asked if she was on the ride (she hadn't told him specifically what she was doing) and told her if she was she should not come home and that he was going to close her bank accounts. We had to pull off the freeway so she could run to the bank and get as much money out as possible. Also, as we were leaving the prayer service another rider was cornered by a gentleman who started telling her she was going to hell etc. Quite scary that he was able to get in the church and all that.
After the service we had Chinese food just like the Freedom Riders did before they left (Jake belabored this point a bit much, I've gotta say) and a concert by Someone's Sister (they're a lesbian folk duo who do a lot of good work with domestic violence). We also got nifty lunchpails filled with candy and light up hats with smiley faces. Yay gays. We had a good time, and then a long conversation about what the next day was to hold.
So Friday morning we got up and dressed in our supercool Soulforce Equality Ride garb. Many of us decided to fast in preparation and in support of those who were going to be arrested. We got on the bus and headed back to the church for final preparations and to train community members who wanted to stand with us, then boarded the bus to head over to Falwell country. We sang "we shall overcome" and "this little light of mine" and other things. Robin and I happened to be sitting in the front row of the bus nearest the media, and were definitely the tear-jerker handholding footage of beautiful young women fighting for justice and all that. Also, the gentleman from Logo caught me calling Mom to say I wasn't getting arrested and was doing just fine, and then he interviewed me. He said later he hoped that footage will make the final cut 'cause it was really surreal.
Thursday evening we went to First Christian Church, where we had a lovely sending service including prayers and songs and a candle lighting ceremony. Jake's parents lit candles for us and gave us a speech on behalf of all our parents and said they were so proud of as their children and the future of the world. It was very moving. More crying. This was especially appropriate because earlier that day one member of a group got a call from her father, who had seen an article about the ER in the local paper. He asked if she was on the ride (she hadn't told him specifically what she was doing) and told her if she was she should not come home and that he was going to close her bank accounts. We had to pull off the freeway so she could run to the bank and get as much money out as possible. Also, as we were leaving the prayer service another rider was cornered by a gentleman who started telling her she was going to hell etc. Quite scary that he was able to get in the church and all that.
After the service we had Chinese food just like the Freedom Riders did before they left (Jake belabored this point a bit much, I've gotta say) and a concert by Someone's Sister (they're a lesbian folk duo who do a lot of good work with domestic violence). We also got nifty lunchpails filled with candy and light up hats with smiley faces. Yay gays. We had a good time, and then a long conversation about what the next day was to hold.
So Friday morning we got up and dressed in our supercool Soulforce Equality Ride garb. Many of us decided to fast in preparation and in support of those who were going to be arrested. We got on the bus and headed back to the church for final preparations and to train community members who wanted to stand with us, then boarded the bus to head over to Falwell country. We sang "we shall overcome" and "this little light of mine" and other things. Robin and I happened to be sitting in the front row of the bus nearest the media, and were definitely the tear-jerker handholding footage of beautiful young women fighting for justice and all that. Also, the gentleman from Logo caught me calling Mom to say I wasn't getting arrested and was doing just fine, and then he interviewed me. He said later he hoped that footage will make the final cut 'cause it was really surreal.
posted by Di at 2:48 PM
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