Tonight (Saturday) I saw evidence of a significant paradigm shift in my community. And who do we have to thank for it? A group of talented high school thespians, their inspiring director, an open-minded principal and a church that practices what it preaches.

This weekend our local high school, Grosse Pointe South, put on "The Laramie Project," the play based on interviews of the townspeople of Laramie, Wyoming after Matthew Shepard, a 21 year-old University of Wyoming student, was tortured, beaten and left to die tied to a fence in the prairie outskirts of their town. October 6th was the ten year anniversary of this gay hate crime that touched people the world over. But for some, in particular Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, anti-gay attitudes are as virulent now as then.

The scene pictured here was enacted in real life on Friday afternoon when three members of the Kansas church traveled to our community in Michigan to mount the same kind of protest they'd mounted at Matthew Shepard's funeral ten years ago. And their signs were the same: "God Hates Faggots." But I'm proud to say that my politically conservative community let the Rev. Phelps' parishioners know their message was not welcome here.

On Friday, after the Kansas trio had mounted a protest in front of Christ Episcopal Church because the rector had written letters-to-the editor supporting the high school's putting on "The Laramie Project," they walked next door to the school just as the students were getting out for the day. In silence 100 members of Christ Church gathered in front of the protestors and symbolically turned their backs on the trio holding their signs, thereby acting as a human shield between their hatefulness and the students. Then hundreds of high school teachers and students came outside to mount their own counter demonstration, holding up signs that called for love and tolerance.

I've never been more proud of my community. And it was the young who led us to this new place of tolerance and acceptance of differences. But I gather the real shero here is Lois Bendler, the director who brought this play to her students. Beth Quinn wrote the following in an October 23 Grosse Pointe News article about the play:

"It is a very moving and interesting story," said Lois Bendler, director of the Pointe Player's production. "As literature, it is just stunning."

Aside from the play's aesthetic qualities, Bendler said it covers a subject worth addressing.

"We need to educate people that gays are disrespected in the same fashion that black people were treated 20 years ago," she said. "Shepard's death was purely a hate crime. His killers did it 'just because he was a fag and they could do it.'"

Bendler said she hopes the school's production of "The Laramie Project" will increase people's awareness of their own biases against gays.

"I think is it healthy to look at an issue from all sides," said Bendler. "We are not trying to change people's minds, but just to expose their thinking to others' ideas."

She particularly hopes young people will attend the play.

"Young people need to recognize the jokes and the subtle things they say and do make gays out to be less than human."

Well, Ms. Bendler did more than raise awareness among the students, she and her Pointe Players changed perceptions of the entire community. I've come to see that Matthew Shepard's life may have been tragically short but his work goes on.