SAVE AMERICA FROM OPERATION SAVE AMERICA!!!! Says Uni Q. Mical , Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 9:51 PM, in

So we pretty much experienced the time of our lives today...coming from Baltimore, i'd never up close and personally experienced confronting the people that are most against me, and that fuel my activist fire, until today. This pro-life, right-wing, ultra-Christian, anti-gay, anti-abortion anti-(fill-in-the-blank-with-your-oppression-here) group Operation Save America came to Atlanta to spread the good ol' backwoods news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, topped off with a cherry of "Jesus is the standard." They'll be here for all of next week, July 12-19, in their attempt to "save" us from the evils that, I'm assuming, they're saved from themselves. I'm not too certain what Jesus they praise, or partner with in their personal (and private) lives, but I doubt he'd wail around posters with dead fetuses on them to rub in people's faces. Really, it's all so sensational.

I, along with five other beautiful ladies from and affiliated with SPARK (Mia, Paris, Ally, Erin, and Darlene), wanted to make our presence MORE than known to them in their comfy abodes at the Best Western Hotel. We started out at an intersection in front of a Denny's, draped in our fabulous pro-choice sweat and pink blankets of "WELCOME TO REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE SUMMER, OSA", in addition to other "Honk for Reproductive Justice" and "Sex/Justice is the Standard" signs. After near fainting, we realized we should relocate across the street from the hotel in the shade, where our impact would not only be seen, but heard. We didn't even give them a chance to wrap their cold, heartless bodies in the hotel towels for a quick post-travel shower without them hearing our chants from the megaphone across the streets of "SAY YES TO JUSTICE!!! SAY NO TO OSA!!!!" and "SAVE US FROM POVERTY!!! SAVE US FROM IGNORANCE!" and the like.

It wasn't before long we gained the attention of one kind fellow named John from OSA, who continued to reiterate his Puerto-Rican heritage to us, so as to demonstrate how much he loathed racists and racism. Nevertheless, we reiterated to him numerous times that his organization, despite HE not being racist, was avidly racist in its approach. We also all detected a big queer stamp on his forehead after hearing his tale of not having his first kiss until the altar at 34, which we respected...but, like many right-wingers don't tend to do, we looked beyond the surface of this issue, and more than likely, there's some repression in that thar soul.
There's a thin line between being nice and coming to speak, and trying to distract us from our agenda at hand, which is to protest the presence of ignorance, oppression, and control on our bodies and our city. So, Mia kept her finger on the megaphone button, and continued to shout through to the balconies of the hotel.

Soonafter, we drew quite the numerous crowd of zealots--all donning their electric red "Jesus is the Standard" t-shirts, and overwhelmingly white, middle-aged, and male. The one female carried the gold-paged, coffee-table Bible in her hands, as an armour against us demonic folks. Many of them didn't say much, but they liken their presence to be intimidating at the least, which...just doesn't work for six loud-mouthed, passionate queer women (sorry!). One came over to me, and began to interrogate about my presence here, as well as my stance being pro-choice...he loved when i broke down the terminology and described fetus as a "latin" term, stating that "baby" was more appropriate. Though diplomatic, the conversation continued on, he reiterating that "the rights of the poor, innocent baby had no right to be thwarted", my "the rights of the poor, oppressed woman had no right to be thwarted". At some point, I felt severely surrounded, but nevertheless spoke loudly and explicitly that i'm SICK of people telling me what to do with my body. Then, I look over to the left and there's Flip, the classic religious NUT who's been in OSA since jump (who doesn't mind getting arrested), telling us how "pathetic" we were that it was only six of us in attendance. Fortunately, I wasn't around to hear much of the verbal holy diarrhea he had to spew, with the other ladies catching the bulk of it. Ally took quite the in-your-face sex approach, asking them if there were two gays doin' it in the middle of the streets, would that be seen as sinful...Erin later pointed out no one commented on her "Sex is the Standard" sign...to break it down, they all just need one good freaky ass night. With each other. And their lives can be muuuuuch happier, and they can get out of our pants and uteruses.

On the way out, after announcing we're headed to a Dyke, Dick, and Drag Derby in the Park, with Paris giving them DETAILED directions of how to get there just in case they wanted to shake up some funnnnnn, one of the old white guys shouted we needed to save our souls, yadda yadda yadda...my response being "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". Now why did i say that...you say one scripture, they have 100 coming back at you. He even questioned my Jesus, assuming it was some other Jesus I worshipped...honestly, it must be.

Then...the cops came. And we weren't the ones they were after. You should've seen 'em scatter across the streets! No conversation, just movement...the disturbingly alarming dead fetus photo even crawled across, at the hands of the woman holding it.

I just honestly can't believe people like this exist. They'll be around all next week, protesting clinics like a swarm of locusts, holding daily Bible studies, as if they need to remind themselves ANYmore of the same 24 verses they'll throw at us, and most of all, disguising their oppressive behavior as "rescue". Well, we're woman enough for 'em. They might've gotten away with murder (ah! murder!) twenty years ago when they came to Atl, but this go 'round, it's not that easy. We, women of color, queers, pro-choice, women who go to those clinics, any and everybody else who's down with standing up for our bodies...are a force to be fucked with. Come check us at the press conferences on black women and abortion (Monday @ 9am), film festivals, and of course, in the streets. With signs and church fans. Holluh.