Strange “tolerance”
Encouraged by the excellent reception we had yesterday near the Rhode Island Mall, today we opted to continue campaigning at similar busy intersections. However, since we were also the object of the ire of the minority which advocates homosexual “marriage”-which at times is reinforced with threats and mostly expressed in language we would never reproduce-we took the precaution of regularly changing our location to avoid giving homosexual activists an opportunity to make good on those threats. As subsequent events showed, we failed in this objective.
During the lunch hour we rallied near the Warwick Mall, where the response was overwhelmingly positive: there was a constant stream of honks and very few expletives. The police did respond to a call they received from a passing car, but assured us the complaint was unfounded.
After our lunch break, we returned to the same location as yesterday. Once again, vehicles were already honking in support as we were setting up, and the overall support was even greater than at the lunch hour rally. However, the hostility from a few soon made itself felt when the passenger of a passing vehicle hurled a bottle of soda at a member while shouting “we will be back.”
A few minutes later, three women approached the median where we had positioned our banner: one threw the contents of a jar of mayonnaise at the volunteer who was holding the large standard while the other two grappled with our photographer, trying to grab his camera and camcorder. One of them also pepper sprayed three of us while her cohorts sprayed the members and our banners with soda. At this point, a burly woman got out of a car that was waiting in the traffic and proceeded to assault our photographer, repeatedly punching him They were shouting obscenities the whole while. There was no warning. It happened so quickly: within one cycle of the traffic signal. We got the license plate numbers of the second car, but an occupant of the first car had covered the plate with her shirt. We immediately called the police who responded promptly and have opened a case.
As the TFP member responsible for the Rhode Island and Maine caravan, I was honored to witness the disciplined and restrained behavior of my colleagues in face of this unprovoked attack.