Saturday morning funny

This Saturday morning, I volunteered at Planned Parenthood walking women through the protesters. As I have stated many times before, protesters generally fall into one of a handful of groups – those who hand out literature, those who sit quietly and pray, and those who scream obscenities. Although the literature is rife with falsities (e.g. giving Planned Parenthood any business supports abortion), irrelevancies (e.g. Margaret Sanger was a racist) and statements that make one wonder who wrote these things (e.g. how can a non-profit like Planned Parenthood charge you for birth control?), I have much less of a problem with the literature-protesters and the praying-protesters than I do with the obscenities-protesters. Unfortunately, the obscenity-protesters tend to be the most entertaining and provide endless fodder for blog entries like this one.

On this particular Saturday, a middle-aged, petite fellow decided the best way to change the world for the better was to levy homosexual slurs at me and any other guy who approached the doors of the clinic. I have a feeling the irony of this assumption was lost on him, but I must say, my homophobic vocabulary was greatly increased over the course of a couple of hours! At one point, a gent dropped off his girlfriend at the clinic, then went and parked the car and I crossed the street to greet him and walk him in. I won’t mince words – this guy was big. A very tall, very muscular African-American guy who may as well have had “don’t mess with me” written across his forehead. He was almost to the door when the protester yelled “hey faggot!” The client whipped around and said “did that guy just call me a faggot!?” The volunteer holding open the door for him did some quick thinking, pointed at me and said “no – he was talking to that guy.” “Good” responded the client, as he walked into the clinic.

I paused for a second, then strolled over to the protester and told him that he might want to refrain from provoking this particular client when he comes back out. “I’m not scared” explained the protester, “God is going to put him down for what he is doing.” “Yes, I understand that is what you believe” I said, “but that’s when he dies – I’m worried about you today.”