- Stephenville is approximately 106 miles southwest of Dallas.
The Star-Telegram of Fort Worth is reporting that Tarleton State University police will need 50 extra local and state officers on Saturday, when student-director John Jordan Otte presents an excerpt from the gay-themed play “Corpus Christi” as a drama class project. As DV staffer David Taffet, who broke this story last week, has noted, the right-wingers in Stephenville are raising hell about the play, which depicts a gay Jesus. They say the content is particularly offensive the week before Easter. And according to The S-T, they’re now planning to protest and “witness” in the parking lot outside the theater. So I’m just wondering out loud here, are any LGBT groups planning to make the 100-mile trek from Dallas? It’s a long drive, but doesn’t this situation warrant a show of support from the community in the nearest metropolitan area? Or in the interest of logistics and strategy, should we just ignore these nutjobs? Please feel free to discuss in the comments.
Ignore the nutjobs.
Publicity is their oxygen.
It seems like they’ll get the publicity either way. They’ve already gotten plenty of it. I guess part of it would be a show of support for the brave student. Then again, I’m not even sure whether he’d want that.
With the Texas Taliban converging on Tarleton State University to intimidate the student director John Jordan Otte, and any other GLBT supporter, I would be in favor or supporting the Tarleton GLBT community and stand in solidarity with them.
ABSOLUTELY NOT. This isn’t an issue per se for the LGBT community, it’s a constitutional right that these students are expressing (and are protected). I concur that having people protest would only give the right wing -bible thumping – oppressives- a platform to spew their hate speech, which usually means a rallying cry to get them to donate their money to political causes to destroy LGBT progress in Texas.
If we could gather a large enough group that we could occupy the space then I would go along.
I would even chip in on the bus(es).
Even if all we did was to form a cordon to keep the wing-nuts at bay. No signs or flags, just fill up the space so they can’t even get close to the performance.
I agree with John and Joey. First of all, we don’t know if this kid wants our presence there. Maybe he’s just trying to get through his class project as painless as possible and doesn’t want our meddling. Second, the best way to make this worse is for us to get into a shouting match with the local bigots. Believe me, I’ve organized and been to enough protests to know there will be a small number of anti-religion crazies within our group to ruin the whole thing. Third, we can’t even get people to show up for a protest IN DALLAS. Who’s gonna wanna go 100 miles away? The school is behind this kid. I’m sure there is a large student body that is supporting this kid. There will be plenty of security at the school and I hope that the police do their job and keep the protesters out of the theater. I think we need more info before we starting rushing in with our flags and megaphones. Are there any LGBT organizations at TSU? Are there any LOCAL groups organizing a counter that we can contact? These are the people who need to take lead.
Let them thump all the Bibles they want. This play has drawn this kind of protest everywhere it has been mounted and the producers know this. Controversy = ticket sales, even at a college.
It’s a first amendment issue not LGBT.
Just my take.
They are not TRYING to sell tickets. This is a class project. John’s production is the business of Channel 11 news and the offended bigots they polled (who never saw or read the play) as much as John’s math homework is their business. I was invited to come see the production. The local preachers who are breathing fire have not been.
I am a Stephenville resident and work at Tarleton, and am, of course, appalled by the idea that people will be protesting the production. If there was a counter-movement here and John WANTED that to happen, I’d be there front and center. But, from what I’ve discussed with other people, most feel that we don’t need to picket and yell or gather up signatures………….we’ve already had our battle (the American Revolution) and we already have our signatures (the Constitution!). And, in this case, the University responded appropriately by making the statement that we have no right to interfere with the production. Had the administration responded differently, it would certainly be an LGBT issue.
You will also not be surprised to hear that the LGBT community is not very visibly organized here. Over the years, we have had several attempts, particularly in the form of student organizations, to develop a voice, but constantly meet this kind of opposition (although less publicized!) at any event. There is a very small group that is in the beginning stages here, and, because John is involved with that group, I’m sure they are well aware of what is going on.
Honestly, what I’d really love to see is a huge increase in LGBT enrollment at Tarleton to take this place by storm! So send people our way and start scholarship funds!
Appropo to the subject – the drama here desrves to be focosed only on the stage.
We should let the play be performed in as much peace as possilbe and altercations will make it worse and draw more negative attention. If we aren’t there, the protestors on the other side will have that many fewer people to “witness” to or yell at. I kind of like the image of them having the winds yanked out of their bigotted sails.