In response to a planned demonstration by Westboro Baptist Church, Oklahomans for Equality (OkEq) encourages its community to join its Pledge-a-Picket Initiative where sponsors can donate per demonstrator participating in this harmful event. Nex Benedict and their family along with the youth of Owasso deserve respect and support, not hateful rhetoric.

“This is an opportunity for our community to respond with love and kindness. Our children need and deserve safe spaces to learn and grow. This is especially true for our 2SLGBTQIA+ youth. Our youth deserve an environment free from bullying, harassment, and harm as they discover who they are and all of the incredible potential that they possess.” said Eddie Carreno, board member and spokesperson for OkEq.

The Rainbow Youth Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ youth, has seen a 500 percent increase in the number of calls on their Crisis Call Line the week following the death of Nex Benedict. About 70 percent of calls mentioned the news about Owasso as a reason for their distress. Time published this data and also shared that 85 percent of callers said they were facing bullying at school and/or on social media.

“We want to provide an opportunity to productively counter the harmful, exclusionary, and hateful message sent by the Westboro contingent,” said Paula Shannon, an OkEq board member. “This initiative gives all of us who believe in the dignity of humanity, love, and inclusivity the opportunity to show the young people in Owasso that so many of us see them,
affirm them, and care about them. Rather than engaging in unproductive yelling at each other, we choose to pledge for and invest dollars toward our values.”

OkEq requests that the community responds with peace, love, and kindness. Here is how you can do so. Join the initiative here. Pledge an amount that you will donate for each demonstrator who participates by holding signs and chanting harmful, hateful rhetoric. For example, if you donate $1 per demonstrator and 100 people show up with anti-2SLBTQIA+ messages, you would contribute $100 in the name of dignity, love, and inclusivity. If you pledged 10 cents per
demonstrator and about 75 people sharing hate line- up on the sidewalks, you would donate $7.50.

All funds donated will go toward OkEq’s youth programs, which includes AFFIRM, a cognitive behavioral therapy-based program for ages 14-19, and Saturday programming with opportunities for peer support, skill building, leadership, learning, advocacy work, mutual-aid, organizing, socializing, and fun!“

The more hate that shows up, the more dollars we will raise to support advocacy for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and our youth programming. Let’s invest in dignity, love and inclusion,” said Eddie Carreno.

Join the Pledge-a-Picket Initiative now. Honor Nex’s dignity as well as that of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Spread love. Show that you value inclusivity.