Bridge Builders Response to Westboro Baptist

As Spoken By:
Hope Gipson, Bridge Builders President
Scott Frenzel, Bridge Builders Vice-President
Kyle Stockard, Bridge Builders Secretary
Tanya Orlov, Bridge Builders Treasurer
Blake Ford, Bridge Builders Publicist
Before Belmont University
(October 31, 2016)
Hope Gipson
Happy Halloween. I want to begin by expressing my full gratitude to everyone who woke
up this morning and tracked down the Bell Tower just to come pray with us. Youve all
donated a bit of your time and energy to our cause by going out of your way to be here
with us, and I promise that has not gone unrecognized. Each of you being here today,
literally just being here with love and grace is significant in more ways than I believe any
of you will ever know. Were unbelievably thankful to have all of your hearts with us this
morning in solidarity with us,us being some of your fellow classmates, teachers, parents,
students at Belmont University that have been individually targeted this week by one of
the most infamous hate groups in American history, the Westboro Baptist Church.
For those of you who arent aware, Westboro released a statement a few weeks ago
planning on picketing Belmont because of the existence of the Belmont Bridge Builders,
an LGBTQIA+ and Allies organization that I am not afraid to say, I currently serve as
President. I joined Bridge Builders a little more over two years ago, a freshman who
came from a city and high school where the only gay person I had ever met had had his
eye gouged out by Christians who couldnt stand that a sinner like him went to our
school, as if he wasnt a human being worthy of safety just because of his sexuality.
Needless to say, Bridge Builders has been a healing process and community for me, an
organization where I, for the first time in my life, found community as an LGBT
individual and began to really believe that who I fell in love with didnt make me any less
of a person worthy of safety and protection. Belmont has changed my life in so many
positive ways, but Belmonts Bridge Builders program saved my life.
So it was a lot, waking up a few weeks ago to about a thousand texts from my friends and
classmates that had found out what Westboro had said about the organization I serve

1900 Belmont Boulevard, Nashville, TN 37212: Email: hope.gipson@pop.belmont.edu

before me. It was a lot having to go to their atrocious website and read them personally
attack the people and organization that has saved my life and the lives of my friends time
and time again. To be honest, it made me tired. Im really tired of facing hate for who I
love. And I know their hateful rhetoric hurt a lot of you that morning, I know it re-opened
a lot of old wounds suffered at the hands of misled churches past, and I sympathize with
all of you in that I too wanted to respond to their hate, their personal attacks on who I am
and who my friends are with outrage, indignation, maybe even hatred in return. But we
didnt respond with hate. We are here this morning responding in love. Its easy to
scream in outrage, easy to respond with violence towards those who attack us, but Jesus
never took the easy road and this morning, neither do we Belmont. Screaming at someone
has never changed their heart, never changed their mind and I firmly believe that is
because when someone is truly to change like Saul did in the Scriptures all those years
ago, they need to be confronted with the presence of God. And God is love. Today, this
morning, if someone were to look at us gathered here today, I promise you they will see
love and they will see God.
I am proud to be here doing only this in response today. I am proud to stand here with
both the members of the Belmont Bridge Builders and our allies in the Nashville
community, responding to a personal, painful hate with nothing but love and care that
truly reflects the compassion and pure mercy of Christ I grew up hearing about before I
was old enough to have to face groups like the Westboro Baptist Church who tried to tell
me that Gods grace and perfect creation didnt extend to people like me. I applaud you
all for not listening to their rhetoric, and for responding with patience and love in
imitation of our God who loves everyone, even the misguided who preach hate, and even
people like me who have been told theyre not perfect in Gods eyes. I am. All of you are.
And Belmont, though I have not always felt accepted and loved for who I am, standing
up here today, even despite the hate currently being shouted at this morning, I feel loved.
I feel God made me perfect. I see God in our gathering today. Thank you each of you for
being courageous enough to take the hard road, but the loving road this morning. Thank
you each of you for believing in love, for fighting for us this morning with peace, and for
taking our pain seriously.
The Westboro Baptist Church is a joke, a small organization of 14 hateful people that try
to wound others for no reason with Scripture taken out of context just to promote hate
with the most loving book ever written. I applaud you all for realizing that though this
organization isnt a joke, the hate theyve promoted, the message theyve championed is
not a joke. Every year, it is estimated over 1500 LGBT individuals will commit suicide.
Transgender individuals, they currently have a life-expectancy between 30-32 years
because of a suicide rate of nearly 50% and an atrocious homicide rate, they get killed for
who they are. Statistically, if you were trans and college aged your life would be almost
over. Imagine that fear, and please realize that individuals in your very classes live with
that fear every day. On June 11, 2016, a man with hate opened fire in an Orlando
nightclub and killed 49 people. On November 12, 2014, Gizzy Fowler a trans-woman of
color who used to greet Belmont students at Chipotle was murdered less than 10 miles
from where we all stand today. Though Westboro is a joke, hate and violence have never
been and the hate they spread has taken lives and threatened to take the lives of every

1900 Belmont Boulevard, Nashville, TN 37212: Email: hope.gipson@pop.belmont.edu

LGBT person that stands before this Bell Tower with us today. Of every person in Bridge
Builders. We stand today, to remind ourselves and our allies, that this hate exists. But
more importantly, we stand today, to acknowledge how terrifying, how insurmountable
that hate threatens to be, and yet how we still can and will conquer it with love. Today,
with all the gentleness, kindness, and tolerance each of you possess, we drown their hate,
and remind every LGBT person on this campus, in our classes, in our world that they
matter. And well fight this hate and protect them because they matter to us. We protect
them because they are perfect. We protect them because God would want us to, because
He loves them too. Our God is not a God of inaction, and He will rescue all of us from
danger and hate someday. Today, we allow God to work through us and we save each
other from a little bit of hate this morning.
I know this sort of thing is very sensitive, and some of you may need mental health
resources at this time. Hate is a tough subject, and this is likely not the first time any of us
have experienced hate to this degree. Should you need support at this time, our pastoral
staff including Micah Weedman and Heather Daughtery will be available throughout.
Additionally, Belmont Counseling Services is in attendance and allyship today should
you need them led by Peg Leonard-Martin. If you dont need them this morning, I
understand hate and trauma can take days to set in and I encourage all of you to seek
them out this week should you need a loving, allied support.
Finally, I want to offer myself as a support. I love Belmont. I love our LGBT population.
I love the Belmont Bridge Builders more than I ever knew I could love a group of people.
I love our queer population who arent members of the Belmont Bridge Builders. In
addition to me, I invite you all to reach out to the Belmont Bridge Builder officer team
who shares my want to protect each of you at this time. We offer ourselves in support,
and if you need someone to talk to, remember our faces. With honor, Id like to introduce
our officer team our vice president Scott Frenzel, secretary Kyle Stockard, publicist
Blake Ford, and Tanya Orlov, our treasurer.
Tanya Orlov
My name is Tanya and I am the treasurer of Bridge Builders. As a member of the LGBT
community, coming to Belmont felt like a risk. Being a small Christian school in the
South, I didnt know how I would be treated. Luckily, for the vast majority of my time
here at Belmont, I have felt nothing but love and acceptance from my community and I
am extremely thankful for that. Nonetheless, Westboro Baptist church is a reminder for
me. A reminder that there are people in this world who hate me without even knowing
who I am. Who hate me for wanting to love and feel love in the most authentic way I
know. There is no easy or proper way to fight hateespecially hate that is fueled by
matters of love. But if theres anything Ive learned how to do it is to love, and as a
Christian institution I invite everyone here to love as welllove yourself, love your
students, your friends, family, colleagues. Love for the sake of it and make your love
heard. Because the only way I know how to fight hate is with love.

1900 Belmont Boulevard, Nashville, TN 37212: Email: hope.gipson@pop.belmont.edu

Hope Gipson
Today we will be reading Scripture, and praying to God that His word may comfort our
hearts at this time. We will be offering intercession, and praying collectively led by
Heather Daughtery for the intentions that have both torn our hearts, and helped mend
them. Finally, we will be praising God in song, and offering our voices and community in
prayer for inclusivity, and for an end to hate and violence towards a vulnerable
community.
Todays service is in response to the hate and destruction that continues to propagate
around us in our lives directly related to the LGBTQ community. Our pain has a place in
the heart and the kingdom of God, and this is a place to offer those at Gods altar: to
name injustice, to name brokenness without shame and without fear.
Note: Even though there is Christian language in this prayer service today, please feel
free to pray in whatever way serves your relationship with your God, Jehovah, Allah,
mother, father, non-binary Divine parent.
Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures
The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone.
This was the Lords doing,
And it is marvelous in our eyes (Matthew 21:42)
Though I know, each of you have probably heard this Scripture thousands of times, I
think theres value in this Word of God for the marginalized, for those who dont always
fit into society. I know Im not the only one here who feels rejected almost every day by
different institutions just because of who I was born to love. Im not the only LGBT
person who has felt rejected time and time again. I know, we all feel a little rejected this
morning facing the hate that the Westboro Baptist Church has brought to our campus in
an attempt to discourage us.
But we shouldnt be discouraged. Jesus existed as the perfect example of someone
rejected by society, by every religious institution, even by those who called themselves
faithful. Jesus didnt fit into any of the boxes people expected of the figure that would be
Christ. And yet, Jesus is stone that the builders rejected that has become the foundation of
the Church and the faith. This has modeled to us that the kingdom belongs to the outcasts,
those rejected by the religious institutions, and in the words of Jesus, this is the Lords
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Sometimes, well, a lot of the time, we are the
outcasts. We are the rejected. And I call each of you to rejoice in that today, because God
loves the outcasts and promised them the Kingdom of Heaven.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16-17)
Though today we are outcasts, there is a God who hasnt forgotten us and someday, we
will be uplifted, we will no longer be the non-traditional stones that dont fit the molds
1900 Belmont Boulevard, Nashville, TN 37212: Email: hope.gipson@pop.belmont.edu

society has for us that the builders reject. We will be the cornerstone in Him. Thats
crazy. Thats a reason for joy. Regardless of what those who spout hate at us say, God
has promised us life and their hate cant take that or His love from us. I know, society,
and hate groups, have expectations for us, who we should love and what that love should
look like. Society once had so many expectations for Jesus, they didnt recognize Him
when He stood on this earth, though looking back it seems ridiculous He was so
unrecognizable to them. Maybe, because of their expectations, they dont recognize God
in our love right now, but someday it will seem ridiculous they didnt. God doesnt
always work through the conventional. God once used a rainbow as a sign that He would
never flood the earth again, and today looking out at all the rainbows here, be reminded
of His promise and the promise that we will never be flooded with hate. That rainbow
right there is a reminder God will not let us drown. Let us pray.
God,
We pray in thanks for your protection, your love, your perfect creation, and we today we
stand united under rainbows, and your promise that we wont drown. Were sorry for
every time we didnt believe you when you told us that you loved us and that we were
beautiful in your sight, made in your image. We will not drown in those thoughts, we
believe you, we believe we are as we are meant to be. We cry out. We mourn the harm on
our own souls and bodies, we mourn the lives lost of the beautiful lesbian, gay, bisexual,
trans, and queer people. And yet, we are reminded that though we have lost so much, we
will not drown. We are not forgotten. God, you built your Kingdom on the rejected, the
marginalized, those who society didnt have a place for. We await your salvation, your
redemption, the day that people can look at the love between a man and a man or a
woman and a woman or anyone who doesnt fit societys expectations and see the
presence of God. We pray for strength in changing the hearts of those who will persecute
us to come and we await the day You uplift all those who have been cast aside, and
broken by expectations and out of context hate.
Sincerly, a bunch of stones the builders have rejected
Praise you, the God who will not reject us.

1900 Belmont Boulevard, Nashville, TN 37212: Email: hope.gipson@pop.belmont.edu