i m not sure that will pass constitutional have you heard they re coming? we ve heard they re coming, yes. i agree. we need to let these people grieve in dignity and have orderly funeral processions and we ll work to make sure that happens and do everything we can together to make that happen i think. we can get the people together to do something like that to help out, that s something we can all do. it s not just political leaders voicing outrage about the protest plans. some tucson citizens are planning what they call angel action. they re using bed sheets to make angel wings and they re planning to use these wings to shield mourners from the protest. tucson community activist, kristin, is part of the angel action group and joins us again from tucson. if you confront or come up against these people, and i have in various stories i ve covered, they re quite aggressive, they re quite loud and in many ways they re quite obscene. i m wondering how you would
i mean, what s the reaction been to your idea? the reaction has been overwhelming. we want only about 30 angels. the reason is westboro usually has about 15 people, sometimes less. we know they have a protest planned for washington, d.c. the following week. so we kind of ended up having 200 people so far respond and say that they ll help us build them. we ve had over 2,500 to 3,000 people say that they want to come help us line the sidewalks to the funerals dressed in all white, just having a very peaceful, non-violent, silent protest. so we re basically trying to block any type of messages from affecting this poor girl s family and basically saying our community supports you and we are so sorry for you but we re here for you. i ve covered a number of funerals where this group has shown up, and they re not only very loud, they also hold up some very graphic signs. and i m wondering just how exactly do you combat that beyond just using these angel
governor can sign it today. the protest plans are of course drawing widespread criticism from across arizona s political spectrum. cnn s john king spoke with representatives from the republicans, the democrats, and the tea party. you can see that interview on john king usa at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on cnn. and it s not just the political leaders that are voicing outrage over the westboro protest plans. some tucson citizens are planning something they call angel action. they are using bed sheets to make angel wings, and they re planning to use those wings to shield mourners from the protests. tucson community activist christin gilmer is part of the angel action group and she joins us from tucson. thank you very much for being with us. of course. thank you. so first of all, i understand that you knew two of the victims. our heart goes out to you and of course to all in arizona. and i m wondering just who it was you knew and how you were affected as a result. i think the whole com
directly affected. even if you didn t know people, unfortunately, i did lose some people, even if you didn t know people who were lost in the tragedy, this is a really community-based city. there s a lot of love here. there s a lot of acceptance and tolerance. so when someone viciously takes the life of one of our own, tucson s going to respond. and they did so overwhelmingly. and this idea of the angel wing idea, how did that originate? well, actually, i ve been involved in lgbtq and hiv rights and cases for a long time. and we know that romaine patterson, who is the best friend of matthew sheppard, who was killed viciously a while ago, knew people would be protesting his funeral. so what she did was have a large group of people dress in angel wings to completely block the group from being able to affect any of the funeral attendees so that the families could mourn in peace, basically, so they can celebrate the life of someone without having it filled with hate and ignorance. ho
wings? well, what we re planning to do is so there s a group of people, and they hold those signs, which have extremely offensive language on them. it doesn t take many it doesn t take a lot to know how offensive they are. so what the group of angels do, these 30 people, they ll cover the people in signs so if they yell, if they shout, they can t hear it, they can t see it, they won t even be aware that their protesters were there. the rest of them are going to cover the sidewalks and basically surround the entire funeral home as kind of angels surrounding it and just showing that there s protection and there is community support here. but we will have a silent protest. we actually are building the angels tonight. and tomorrow we re going to have a workshop led by cat sinclair, who is this amazing activist, has been involved with westboro before, and what they re going to do is teach tactics and how to respond to these terrible and vile methods in non-violent and peaceful ways. w