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Theater of the Absurd

The long anticipated clash of protesters and counter-protesters at Owasso High School ended peacefully on a sunny March 6th Wednesday afternoon. The Westboro Baptist Church protesters initially met in front of the Owasso School District’s administrative offices at 2:15 PM. At 2:30 PM the WBC protestors had moved to a sidewalk next to Owasso High School where they were met with hundreds of counter-protesters from at least five LBGTQ+ organizations from various states which included The Rainbow Youth Project headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Diversity Center of Oklahoma.[1] Owasso Police had separated the protest and counter-protest groups by placing each on the opposite side of the street from the other.

The colorful Parasol Patrol based in Denver, Colorado, was led by co-founder Eli Bazan who spoke on camera with the Fox 23 News reporter to express the Parasol Patrol’s support of LGBTQ+ students in Owasso.

The Fox 23 News camera crew recorded the husky Mr. Bazan, sporting a beard, shaven head, and a pink knee-length skirt, as he led a large contingent of his supporters across the street to a point adjacent to the Westboro protesters. It was very apparent that this was contrary to police instructions. Consequently, the two groups now very close to each other and not separated by a street but only a few police officers. Fortunately, a physical confrontation was avoided, and loud cheers arose from the counter-protesters when the Westboro protesters eventually ended their protest and left.[2]

A Fox 23 News commentator reminded the viewing audience that the Westboro Baptist Church was considered a hate group according to the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and it was the policy of Fox 23 News to not film any hate group. He stated the news channel did not normally cover hate groups but that they decided to cover the afternoon’s protests and counter-protests because of the safety concerns raised by Owasso Public Schools.[3]

While Fox 23 News correctly identifies Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group, it failed to identify the LGBTQ+ counter-protesters as groups embracing the beliefs of far-left radical organizations such as the SPLC. It behooves news reporters and their listening audience to check the integrity and agenda of any organization that proposes to identify hate groups before one similarly designate that organization as a hate group. Without doubt the Westboro Baptist Church qualifies as a hate group. But Fox 23 News based their decision in part on the SPLC’s hate list. However, the SPLC is notorious for labeling many organizations with conservative political views, espouse traditional family values, and in general support the Judeo-Christian worldview upon which America was founded. The SPLC’s lack of credibility and agenda is exposed when its blacklist of supposed Anti-LGBT hate groups is examined. Some of the most well-known and respected organizations in America have been designated as hate groups by the SPLC: American Family Association, Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, American College of Pediatricians, and D. James Kennedy Ministries.[4]

They both won!

The national attention devoted to the incident that occurred on February 7, 2024, at Owasso Public Schools is astounding. This incident at the center of these protests was described in Part I posted on culturewarrior.net on Monday, March 4, 2024. The two opposing protest groups each achieved their goals—publicity for their respective causes.

In the first group of protesters were members of the tiny unaffiliated Westboro Baptist Church cult of seventy individuals in Topeka, Kansas. WBC is nationally known for their absurd and nonsensical distortion of the Bible and inflammatory denigration of atheists, Jews, Muslims, other Christian denominations, homosexuals and transgender people, and a host of other targets. WBC’s goal is to gain attention and publicity through their outrageous slogans and actions at protests around the nation on a schedule published on their website. If publicity was truly the goal of their protest, they were wildly successful.

But the degree of WBC’s success is infinitesimal compared to that of the second group – the homosexual lobby in the United States. Even before WBC’s planned protest was known, the LBGTQ+ movement mobilized and coordinated efforts to accomplish their agenda through their allies in government and bureaucracy from national to local levels, business, media, and educational institutions at all levels.

Based on this single incident at Owasso High School, the well-funded and well-oiled machinery of the LBGTQ+ movement thrust Owasso, Oklahoma, into a frenzy of national scorn and derision based on incomplete information, half-truths, and outright lies. The following are just a few of many thousands of stories promoting the LBGTQ+ agenda based on the incident at Owasso High School.

• “WWhite House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the daily press briefing on Friday addressed the media about the heart-wrenching death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teenager from Owasso High School in Oklahoma who died recently after being bullied. Jean-Pierre opened her remarks with a personal acknowledgment of the tragedy.”[5]

• “In a powerful condemnation of the circumstances leading to the tragic death of nonbinary, Indigenous teenager Nex Benedict in Oklahoma, Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, is calling on the federal government to take decisive action…Robinson expressed profound concern over the hostile environment fostered by anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and rhetoric in the state (Oklahoma)… Robinson criticized Oklahoma’s rank as fifth in the nation for moving anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, including gender-affirming care bans, bathroom bills, and attempts to ban books, highlighting the violent political rhetoric from state officials as a significant contributing factor to the dangerous climate.”[6]

• “In response to a formal complaint the Human Rights Campaign lodged last week regarding the handling of sex-based harassment incidents, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has initiated an investigation into Owasso Public Schools. The investigation, announced late Friday, aims to address the Oklahoma school district’s response to harassment that may have contributed to the tragic death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old transgender student of Choctaw heritage.”[7]

• “As an Oklahoma community near Tulsa comes to terms with the death of a transgender high school student in early February, many critics of Republican policies in the state are voicing concerns about the anti-LGBTQ+ environment fostered by the right that enables bullying. In a poignant display of defiance and solidarity, Sean Cummings, an Oklahoma City business owner and local politician, went viral after a video posted online showed him laying blame for what happened on Ryan Walters, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, during a public meeting held by the Oklahoma Department of Education Thursday morning.”[8]

• “More than 350 LGBTQ+ organizations, activists, and celebrities are urging the removal of Ryan Walters as Oklahoma superintendent of public instruction, saying he has encouraged ‘a climate of hate and bigotry.’…‘We are outraged that a climate of hate and bigotry has been not only allowed to thrive, but encouraged by the person who is responsible for education in the state of Oklahoma. State officials must be held accountable for bringing the politics of hate into Oklahoma’s schools and making our most vulnerable youth pay the price…Superintendent Walters’ reprehensible conduct shows a willful rejection of his duty to protect the health and welfare of the children in Oklahoma’s public schools and instead has created an environment that allows for hostility and harm for youth like Nex.’”[9]

Oklahoma legislation: Anti-LBGTQ+ OR Pro-child and Pro-family?

These articles purport that Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, and the Oklahoma legislature elected by the citizens of Oklahoma have enacted anti-LBGTQ+ legislation “including gender-affirming care bans, bathroom bills, and attempts to ban books, highlighting the violent political rhetoric from state officials as a significant contributing factor to the dangerous climate.”

The various LBGTQ+ groups will most certainly consider the following to be anti-LGBTQ+ legislation:

• Prohibition of instruction on LGBTQ+ topics in the public schools
• Bars transgender student athletes in K-12 and college from playing on sports teams that match their gender identities.
• Prohibits instruction on human sexuality to students in pre-kindergarten and elementary grades.
• Prohibit the promotion and use of cross-sex hormones, surgical procedures, and puberty-blockers, all based on the child’s perceived gender identity.
• Prevent drag queen story hours in schools and public libraries.
• Prevent the requirement to use pronouns based on the perceived gender identity.
• Removal of pornographic books and other materials from Oklahoma school libraries and classrooms including sexually explicit homosexual books and materials.

Time, space, and the reader’s patience do not allow this writer to respond to each of these and dozens of other legislative initiatives necessary to protect children from becoming mentally and physically victims of the LBGTQ+ juggernaut and its agenda.

Perhaps, the best description of the position of Governor Stitt, Superintendent Walters, and the State legislature when dealing generally with these types of issues in Oklahoma Public Schools is to examine the one issue that appears to be the most offensive to LBGTQ+ supporters and their advocates. That issue is the so-called “bathroom bill” signed into Oklahoma law in May 2022 and which has been labeled by the homosexual lobby and their supporters as a prime example of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

An Oklahoma bill limiting access to public-school bathrooms by a person’s birth sex is now law…School districts and charter schools that don’t comply face a 5% deduction in their state funding. That could subtract thousands to millions of dollars, depending on the school system. Gov. Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 615 into law Wednesday. An emergency provision in the bill caused it to take effect as soon as the governor wrote his signature. “Governor Stitt believes girls should use girl restrooms and boys should use boy restrooms,” Stitt’s spokesperson, Carly Atchison, said in a statement Wednesday evening.

All public-school restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms or shower rooms are now to be designated for exclusive use of the female or male sex. Use of these rooms is restricted to the sex listed on a person’s original birth certificate. The law requires schools to offer single-occupancy bathrooms and changing rooms for those who don’t want to use the facility that aligns with their birth sex.[10]

The vast majority of parents of k-12 students in public schools endorse this legislation. Parents do not want schools to allow use of school bathrooms by students based on their assumed LBGTQ+ gender identity. Parents do want their children to use bathrooms that align with their child’s birth sex. Therefore, the Governor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and state legislature have enacted laws and enforce those laws that reflect the will of the people of Oklahoma.

Battle of Worldviews

The more one understands the blazing culture wars in America, the more one realizes that there cannot be and will not be a compromise on these hot-button issues because in their essence these are fundamental issues of two differing worldviews, and only one worldview will prevail. In America, this conflict of worldviews is between the truth of Christianity’s belief in the Judeo-Christian God as recorded in the Bible and the lie of humanism’s man-centric interpretations of existence.

In his book Visions of Order-The Cultural Crisis of Our Time written 65 year ago, Richard Weaver states that when a culture “… by ignorant popular attitudes or by social derangements” imposes a political concept that creates a different principle of ordering society contrary to universal truths, dissatisfactions arise because society has tampered with the “nature of things.”[11] Homosexuality is one of those disorganizing concepts with regard to human relationships and ultimately disorganizing in building stable, enduring societies. Where traditional views of marriage and human sexuality declines, so do those societies decline that allow it to occur.

In Part III we will present an in-depth examination of:

• Homosexuality as a disorganizing concept with regard to human relationships and society
• The consequences of the tsunami of homosexual activism in its effort to undermine Judeo-Christian foundations of America society
• Why the American church allowed the disorganizing concept of homosexuality to “tamper with the nature of things?”

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:
[1]Amy Hybels, “Planned Protest and counter protest outside Owasso High School ends peacefully.” Fox 23 News, March 7, 2023. https://www.fox23.com/news/planned-protest-and-counter-protest-outside-owasso-high-school-end-peacefully/article_560edaf0-dc12-11ee-9b1d-3fae72469bc9.html (accessed 3-8-2024).
[2]Ibid.
[3]Ibid.
[4] “List of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups, Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_designated_by_the_Southern_Poverty_Law_Center_as_hate_groups (accessed 3-8-2024)
[5] “Karine Jean-Pierre ‘absolutely heartbroken’ over Oklahoma teen Nex Benedict’s death,” Advocate, 2-23-2024.
https://www.advocate.com/news/white-house-highlights-nex-benedict (accessed 3-6-2023).
[6] “HRC president demands federal investigations into Nex Benedict’s death amid Oklahoma’s anti-LGBTQ+
climate,” Advocate, 2-22-2024. https://www.advocate.com/news/kelley-robinson-doj-nex-benedict (accessed 3-6-2024).
[7] “Federal investigation opens into Owasso Public Schools after death of Nex Benedict,” Advocate, 3-1-2024.
https://news.yahoo.com/breaking-federal-investigation-opens-owasso-191300199.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall (accessed 3-6-2024).
[8] “Oklahoma politician roasts Ryan Walters for Nex Benedict’s death to transphobic superintendent’s face,”
Advocate, 2-27-2024. https://www.advocate.com/news/oklahoma-nex-benedict-viral-video (accessed 3-6-2024).
[9] After Nex Benedict’s death, 350 LGBTQ+ groups, activists, and celebs urge Oklahoma superintendent’s
removal,” Advocate, 2-28-2024. https://www.advocate.com/news/activists-demand-ryan-walters-removal (accessed 3-6-2024).
[10] “Oklahoma’s Gov. Stitt signs bill restricting school bathrooms to birth sex, effective
immediately,” The Oklahoman, May 25, 2022. https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/education/2022/05/25/stitt-
signs-oklahoma-bathroom-bill-restricting-transgender-school-access-birth-sex/9900609002/
[11] Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1995, 2006), p. 22.

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Members of Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas, plan to protest at Owasso Public Schools on March 6, 2024 in response to the death of a self-described nonbinary individual[1] (see endnote for definition) one day following an incident at Owasso Public Schools on February 7, 2024. The Westboro protest is not about the unfortunate death of an Owasso Public School student, the Owasso Public School student body, the City of Owasso, and most certainly does present the true message about homosexuality as found in the Bible. What the protest is about is (1) publicity for a tiny sect of misguided false teachers, and (2) a massive public relations campaign to gain sympathy and support for the LGBTQ+ agenda and its followers.

What is the Westboro Baptist Church and what do their followers they believe?

The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is an American, unaffiliated Primitive Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, that was founded in 1955 by pastor Fred Phelps. It is widely considered a hate group, and is known for its public protests against homosexuals and for its usage of the slogans such as “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers.” It also engages in hate speech against atheists, Jews, Muslims, transgender people, and other Christian denominations…WBC has been protesting against homosexuality since 1989. Within a few years, the group expanded to protesting across the country. They often protest at public and private events, including funerals, sports games, and concerts…In 2016, Forbes stated WBC had about 70 members…The group is known to deface the American flag or fly it upside down while protesting. It also draws counter-protests. The group primarily consists of members of Phelps’s extended family, although many of its members have either left and/or been excommunicated.[2]

WBC is a cult that has clothed itself in a distorted form of Christianity and therefore is not Christian but a cult. Although WMC members vigorously teach and preach the five points of Calvinist doctrine, they twist or distort the true meaning of the Scripture such that it bears little resemblance to the doctrine of the vast majority of Baptist churches or other churches that adhere to five-point Calvinism.[3]

Although the message of WBC is almost universally repugnant, the vast majority of Americans are substantially ignorant of what the Bible and Christianity actually teaches about homosexuality and how to engage its practitioners. They condemn the WBC’s message but do not realize that their message is an absurd and nonsensical distortion of the Bible and the meaning of Christianity. Based on WBC’s miniscule size, we can unequivocally know that the WBC protests have been and remain one of Satan’s greatest successes in legitimizing the homosexual lifestyle and the LGBTQ+ agenda in the minds of Americans over the last thirty-five years since WBC began protesting homosexuality in 1989.

Satan’s success has occurred in two ways:

(1) Because most Americans (including many Christians) are ignorant or blind to WMC’s perversion of Scripture and the precepts of Christianity, their knee-jerk reaction is to paint Christianity as morally evil and/or the Bible as irrelevant when it comes to the moral condemnation of the practice of homosexuality and its many branches.

(2) Satan is also successful in using WBC’s message to silence a large number of American pastors and their congregants (including large numbers of evangelical churches) with regard to speaking the truth about the sin and consequences of homosexuality for fear of being tarred with the same brush as used to condemn the WMC and their followers. The consequences of this silence have been disastrous for America and its culture for over a half-century.

Since 2013 when President Obama and Vice President Biden openly and forcefully endorsed same–sex marriage, the legitimization of homosexuality and transgenderism has come to dominate every facet of American life: government, politics, military, education, arts and entertainment, media, education, business and economics, and the family. Not one facet has escaped the draconian force of this evil because the American evangelical church ceded its moral authority through its silence. This was predicted in the very first article posted on culturewarrior.net on March 6, 2013.[4]

To mark the 10th Anniversary of this website, an Culture Warrior article was posted on March 4, 2023, that described the astounding success of the LGBTQ+ agenda through the infiltration and corruption of every sphere of American life as noted above.[5] This article reveals how the initial 2013 Trojan horse of equality in the battle for cultural acceptance of gay marriage was just the beginning of the homosexual agenda’s efforts to dramatically undermined America’s moral foundations informed by the Bible and the founders’ Judeo-Christian worldview.

Events leading up to the March 6th protest by Westboro Baptist Church

The events preceding the death of Nex Benedict (born Dagny Ellis Benedict) is just a microcosm of the culture wars swirling in American in 2024. What is known at this time is that a 16-year old girl by the name of Nex Benedict, who identified as nonbinary, was involved in an altercation with three other girls in a restroom at Owasso High School. The timeline of events at Owasso High School and thereafter is found on the Owasso Police Departments website.[6]

Investigation Update 02-21-2024:
Since February 7th, 2024, the Owasso Police Department has been actively involved in an investigation into a physical altercation that occurred at the Owasso High School and Owasso Public Schools has been cooperative throughout the investigation. The students involved in the incident were all juveniles and juvenile files are confidential and inaccessible to the public in most circumstances.

From reports, records, and statements of witnesses, it appears that:
• On February 7, 2024, a physical altercation occurred in a restroom at the Owasso High School West Campus.
• The physical altercation was broken up by other students who were present in the restroom and a school staff member who was supervising outside of the restroom.
• All students involved in the altercation walked under their own power to the assistant principal’s office and nurse’s office.
• School administrators began taking statements from the students present in the restroom and began contacting parents/guardians of the students involved in the physical altercation.
• Each of the students involved in the altercation was given a health assessment by a registered nurse at the school and it was determined that ambulance service was not required.
• While it was determined that ambulance service was not required, the school nurse recommended that Nex Benedict visit a medical facility for further examination.
• On the afternoon of February 7, 2024, an Owasso School Resource Officer was assigned to respond to Bailey Medical Center where Nex Benedict was being examined. The School Resource Officer interviewed Nex and their parent concerning the altercation at the Owasso High School.
• The following morning, the School Resource Officer followed up with the parent.
• On the afternoon of February 8, 2024, Owasso Fire Department medics were dispatched to a medical emergency involving Nex Benedict, who was transported to the St. Francis Pediatric Emergency Room where they later died.
• While the investigation continues into the altercation, preliminary information from the medical examiner’s office is that a complete autopsy was performed and indicated that the decedent did not die as a result of trauma. At this time, any further comments on the cause of death are currently pending until toxicology results and other ancillary testing results are received. The official autopsy report will be available at a later date. The invesigtion is ongoing.

A 21-minute video from the body camera footage from School Resource Officer Caleb Thompson captured a critical conversation in the emergency room between Thompson, Nex, and Sue Benedict, the teen’s grandmother and adoptive mother. This video is available on the internet on YouTube.[7]

The essence of the video and police report is that three girls in a girls’ restroom at Owasso High School were making derogatory remarks about how other girls in their presence were dressed. One of the other girls (Nex Benedict) threw water from a container on at least one of the girls who had made derogatory remarks. An altercation began between the three girls and Nex whose friends joined the fight. Nex stated that she threw one of the girls from the opposing group into a towel dispenser (According to another report, the girl was thrown by Nex with such force that the towel dispenser was broken open and the door hung by one hinge). Nex states that she was thrown to the floor and they “were beating the sh*t out of me.” The above police report shows that the school’s registered nurse performed a health assessment of all participants after the altercation, and it was determined that ambulance service was not required. However, the nurse recommended that Nex Benedict visit a medical facility for further examination.

As noted in the above police report, preliminary information from the medical examiner’s office indicated that a complete autopsy was performed and indicated that the decedent did not die as a result of trauma. The police will make no other comments on the cause of death pending receipt of the results of a toxicology report and other ancillary testing. It should be noted that forensic toxicology testing is performed after a person’s death and is known as postmortem drug testing to identify and quantify potential toxins, which include prescription medications and drugs of abuse and interpretations of the findings.

Regardless of the cause, the death of Nex Benedict is a tragedy as is the death of all young people at such an early age. Unfortunately, the scheduled protests and counter-protests on Wednesday, March 6, will continue to poison the civil discourse in America and advance the agendas of both Westboro Baptist Church and the LBGTQ+ movement and its supporters.
We shall take another look at these issues in Part II following Wednesday’s protests and counter-protests.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:
[1] Nonbinary gender, Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/nonbinary-gender (accessed 3-3-2024). “A nonbinary gender identity is adopted by individuals who feel that they do not fit into the traditional male/female gender binary. In the 21st century, the gender binary is increasingly considered to be a social construct that reinforces gender roles and stereotypes, a tendency that harms even those who are cisgender (that is, identify with the gender assigned at their birth). Those who identify as nonbinary may not feel that they are a man or a woman… Nonbinary is an umbrella term under which many labels fall: bigender and pangender individuals may identify with both or all genders at once, while genderfluid or genderflux individuals may feel that their gender identity fluctuates over time…Those who identify as nonbinary generally consider themselves a part of the LGBTQ+ community. They may identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, or any other sexual orientation.”
[2] Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church.
[3] Westboro Baptist Church website. https://www.godhatesfags.com/index.html
[4] Larry G. Johnson, “Equality – The Homosexual Agenda’s Trojan Horse in its Battle for Cultural Acceptance,” culturewarrior.net, 3-6-2013. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2013/03/06/equality-the-homosexual-agendas-trojan-horse-in-its-battle-for-cultural-acceptance/
[5] Larry G. Johnson, “Tenth Anniversary of CultureWarrior.Net – March 6, 2013 – March 6 2023,” culturewarrior.net, March 4, 2023. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2023/03/04/tenth-anniversary-of-culturewarrior-net-march-6-2013-march-6-2023/
[6] Owasso Police Department, Investigation update 2021-2024, Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=797096819120305&id=100064599824990
[7] OPD 2024-3316 Community Release, YouTube, originally recorded 2-7-2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJaBumoyRGg&t=12s (accessed 3-4-2023)