About 80 protestors stood outside the Bartell Theatre Friday

night to decry the “blasphemous” nature of the play “Corpus

Christi,” in which a character symbolic of Jesus Christ is

presumably homosexual.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and City Council President Mike Verveer

attended the play to show their support for Madison’s gay

community.

“I think it is important that community leaders be present in a

visible way to show our support for freedom of speech,” Verveer

said.

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and

Property, a Catholic-based organization out of Hanover, Penn., sent

Cieslewicz postcards months before the play through their America

Needs Fatima movement. Although the notes urged the mayor to ban or

protest “Corpus Christi,” Cieslewicz was one of the first people to

buy tickets for the play.

“We pray for the mayor,” said Preston Noell, director of the

Chicago Bureau of Tradition, Family and Property. “Conversion is

open for everyone.”

According to Noell, people from as far as Pennsylvania and

Missouri came to protest the “unspeakable blasphemy” of portraying

Jesus Christ as homosexual.

“To portray him like this is an insult to him and to us as

Catholics,” Noell said.

The America Needs Fatima campaign has organized a number of

protests and rallies including one against the film Dogma. They

have protested other Corpus Christi plays in other parts of the

country as well as an Osbourne Family calendar in which the family

imitates a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus in

her arms.

Members of First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ

came to the protest to proclaim their view.

“[The protestors] are trying to promote hatred for their own

political ends,” Curt Anderson, Senior Minister of First

Congregation Church said. “I think there is a spirit of

divisiveness and hatred.”

Eight Madison police officers patrolled the area outside the

theatre.

The protesters mostly sang Christian songs and recited prayers

in an effort to demonstrate peacefully.

Brittany Hays, a student at University of Wisconsin-Richmond,

came to the protest with the Richland Center Baptist Temple.

“We’re not doing this out of hatred; we’re doing this out of

pure love for other people,” Hays said.

Reverend C.D. Fretz of Richland Baptist Temple said his group,

consisting of approximately 20 people who were mainly students,

came to present a peaceful demonstration of their faith in

Christ.

Some community members unaffiliated with any organizations were

present to simply show their support for the play.

“I’m here to show support for my community and the idea of

intellectual freedom,” said Lindsay Williams, a bystander at the

protest.