Out In The Mountains : News - Guess Who's Coming to the Mayor's Cup?

      Plattsburgh – The Mayor's Cup Festival is an annual week-long event featuring a sailboat regatta, live bands, carnival rides, and fireworks. People come from miles around to enjoy the family fun.
      Little do they know that they're coming to "a sicko UnAmerican hotbed of antiChristic Sodomite Filth" – but Reverend Fred Phelps is on his way to tell everyone just that. He's announced that he and members of the Westboro Baptist Church are coming from Topeka, Kansas, to spew his hate-filled homophobic rhetoric at Mayor Dan Stewart and the Plattsburgh community.
     According to local human rights activist Harold Brohinsky, Phelps' visit was inspired by an off-the-cuff remark during a city council meeting. A local citizen had requested that the $350 fee for booths at the Mayor's Cup be waived for political groups. Mayor Stewart, who is gay, stated that the Mayor's Cup was designed as a family affair, focused on good, clean fun, and not a political event. "He said 'You wouldn't want Fred Phelps up here' – which Fred Phelps found out almost instantly."
      Phelps responded by sending what Brohinsky termed "a real ugly fax" to the Mayor's office, followed by an announcement of his intent to come to Plattsburgh for the Mayor's Cup. Denied a permit to set up shop during the festival, Phelps plans to picket area churches. The churches have been targeted for what Phelps termed "their abysmal failure" to condemn homosexuality.
      "Support for Mayor Stewart is almost absolute," Brohinsky said. "He's never made an issue out of being gay. He was elected – and re-elected – for one reason, and one reason only: he's a good mayor!"
      Plattsburgh's Interfaith Council of Churches and local peace activists have met to plan their response to Phelps' presence. A group of activists, led by Amy MacLeod, Rebecca Leonard, and Andy MacDougall, have created Plattsburgh for Peace, an eclectic mix of citizens united in their desire to keep Phelps away from Plattsburgh.
      "People should know that you don't have to be gay to join us, you don't have to be Christian, you don't have to have any particular viewpoint," explained MacLeod. The group has set up a pledge drive on their website (www.plattsburghforpeace.com) where people can pledge money for every minute Phelps and his cohorts are in Plattsburgh. Funds collected will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Interfaith Food Shelf, and other charitable organizations. Details of other planned activities will be posted to the group's website as they become available.
     "We want to deter people from getting into a screaming match with Phelps or staging counter-protests." said Amy MacLeod. "Instead, we want to be constructive and peaceful, and add to the Mayor's cup festivities."
     Additionally, they're putting together "Art Attack" as a creative response to Phelps' visit. Artists in every medium are invited to donate works of art to be sold during the weeklong festival. Proceeds from the sale will be donated along with monies raised by the pledge drive. Additionally, a film festival is being planned, with a focus on diversity-themed films. At this time, the Art Attack and Film Festival are looking for a venue, as the North Country Cultural Center for the Arts has declined to host the event.
     When asked why, Executive Director Susan Daul replied, "We support the Mayor wholeheartedly. However, our mission is to bring art to the community. To do that we must remain non-partisan. We will not support any side of this issue."
     City administrators have taken the position that Phelps' group can come to the area to have their protest, but that they must abide by the law while doing so. "Let 'em come, make their noise, make fools of themselves, and go home,” Brohinsky concluded. "There's no sense getting in a spite fight with a bunch of lunatics!"

Cynthia Potts is a freelance writer who lives with her family and an increasing menagerie of companion animals in Ellenburg, NY