The mysterious religious zealots who’ve hounded the University District Farmers Market for the last month were (sort of) back in force last weekend after taking a week off to harass NARAL at a fundraiser in Green Lake.
The group, it turns out, is part of a street preacher collective known as Open Air Seattle—although one Open Airee referred to themselves as a member of the creepy, Lovecraftian-sounding “Called Out Ones”—who spout fire, brimstone and anti-gay hatespeech on street corners around town.
Last weekend, they took up residence on the four corners of 50th and University, waving signs about sin and hell across the street from the University Street Fair and Farmers Market.
I wish I had something exciting to report back about this group of douchebag bigots—who’ve managed to piss off a whole bunch of farmers market vendors and businesses along the Ave—but truth be told, they’re just your regular, run of the mill religious nuts. 
They’re ridiculous, hateful turds with little geographic and cultural knowledge—”Queen Anne Hill, that’s where [the gays] are at,” one street preacher, Paul, told me—in desperate need of some sort of validation. It’s unfortunate that they’ve chosen to set up shop in front of the farmers market—they say they don’t have anything against farmers, and one Open Air member told me she believes “Jesus ate organic”—but there seems to be a simple solution: steel drums.
It was nearly impossible to hear Open Air members shouting bible verses over the din of several steel drummers playing outside of the farmers market on Saturday. This is the only thing steel drummers have ever been good for. Maybe the market folks should look into getting them to come out every weekend.
Why don’t we have banners like that? I want to get one that says something humorous.
“ANGRY GAY MAN HOLDING A SIGN”
“DOES THIS FONT SCARE YOU?”
“JESUS SAVES, CTRL+S”
“>:3”
“WHAT WOULD BEA DO?”
@1 hahahahahahahaha … Oh man, that is awesome.
Does anyone else remember when that bald guy used to hang out on the corner of Broadway and John in the 80s with one of these enormous vinyl signs? He was basically always polite and smiling, and he was there pretty much every Friday night. I miss crazy fundamentalists who have the courage of their convictions. I mean really, that whole WBC thing of protesting at funerals and shit? Sometimes I think that’s just because they’re too pussified to actually come where teh gays are.
AGREED! I witnessed this amazing event on Saturday and think this may be the beginning of a new love for steel drums……
If you two musicians are reading this, thank you! It was as if the powers of good and evil were battling in less epic form….but dressed up as each other.
I think it should be a contest, I really do. The winner would get their signs printed by the Stranger and we’ll all go in a group and hold the signs up near these guys. Bonus points for having larger or tough-looking folks to hold the signs.
You could surround them with an entire hippie drum circle. God knows there are enough hippies with drums in the U-District to outnumber the nuts 80 to 1.
Oh yeah, I saw these hateful idiots at the north end of the street fair Saturday. The weird thing is that they only cared about the farmer’s market and not the gay hippie hedonism going on right behind them. After the market closed, they left.
What would be really fun is to have one of those chinese dragon things with all the people lined up in the dragon costume weave in and out between them. You know, just take the edge off it all.
@5 I think a contest is definitely in order. I cannot wait to see what people would come up with for the signs!
They are so offensive that people who have no opinion either way are choosing against them at election time. The market should ask for a hundred yard rule to keep them from disrupting business.
@ 5 Email the editor with your great idea! I want a sign that says “I JUST HAD AN ABORTION” on it, I bet they would shriek with white rage.
One of my very Christian friends gets into arguments with these guys in Red Square all the time. He can’t stand them.
They can’t honestly believe that screeching themselves hoarse at college kids, families, and tourists is going to change anything, right?
@12 It’s amazing what extremists would believe …
A really good steel drum band will rock you like nothing else. But yeah, they’re good for drowning out bigots too.
Baconcat: I once read about some Fred Phelps disciples who protested a gay-friendly church somewhere while wearing T-Shirts that read “Repent Or Perish!” The church members responded by printing their own shirts reading “Repaint Our Parish!”
Vaudeville audiences years ago pelted bad performers with vegetables flung at the stage. I wonder if these bigots have pondered the wisdom of shouting hateful slogans at a place where tomatoes are sold…
Did anybody else catch the fire knife dancer who looked like a ghost pirate at the street fair on Sunday? That was some weird stuff.
Jonah — you mention that it’s a little hard to figure out why they are there, and that it’s just run-of-the-mill religiousity in play etc.
Indeed, plenty of gay folk wonder about this kind of thing every day just walking day the street or watching the news. “What’s your problem? And why are you passing laws against me?”
I saw a great one by the Phelps clan that read “Save the gerbils.” Even I laughed at that one.
@5 I frequently bike past the UW farmer’s market, and I’ve honestly been considering buying a bunch of condoms, standing next to these guys, and handing them out. Seems like doing something both contrary and nice might be rewarding in many ways.
They need the guy from the Teabag party, with the “I Shaved My Balls for This?!” sign.