Vigil for Aurora Shooting Victims; Memorial; and Westboro Baptist Protest

My Sunday started off pretty uneventful; I woke up, had a bagel, and watched a movie. That's how a lot of my days start. But around 5pm, I heard that Westboro Baptist Church was protesting at the scene of the Aurora theater shooting. Upon hearing that news, my plan was to go down there and give them as much shit as I possibly could. If anyone deserves it, it's those assholes. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, they had already left to go back to wherever unholy hell-spawns retreat to after showing their true, cowardly colors. This is not my point, though. What I ended up doing while I was at the prayer vigil was far more important than yelling at some ignorant pricks. Instead, I was able to document an awe-inspiring occasion; one that inspires hope, and a reassurance that the actions of one deranged individual is not indicative of society in general. At the vigil, I saw a swath of people gather with a sense of communal support, and it thankfully backs up my worldview that humanity can stand strong in the face of irrationality and chaos.


Since I didn't get any pictures of the Westboro protest myself, my first inclination was to find some from around the web and put them up here. After thinking about it, however, I've decided to not include any pictures of them whatsoever. Why? Because fuck them. Even though this blog wouldn't give them any added exposure, I just don't think they're important enough to waste my time by including random pictures of them. If I had gotten a chance to snap some shots of me mocking them directly to their faces, I would probably include them. That's alright, though. Let's now focus on the positivity that radiated from the prayer vigil for the victims of the shooting.

I took a lot of pictures of the vigil. I tried to get as many good shots from as many angles as I could, because I think it's important to show how everyone came together today. So, you're going to see a lot of pictures and two videos without commentary. I don't think they require any. As you'll see, the old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" holds up quite well in this instance. You can click on any picture to enlarge it.

I don't really have much else to add. There have been more news stories about all of this in the past couple of days, but I'm sure you can find those elsewhere. I just wanted to show that there is still a lot of good in the world, even after someone tries to prove otherwise.