Now that I've completed editing the video, I can present my report from the Danbury prayer vigil.

A crowd of about 70 people joined a group of clergy members and lay speakers (representing a wide spectrum of different religions across the Danbury area) came together at Kennedy Park on Sunday August 12th for a gathering of reflection, musical celebration, and prayer. The purpose of the prayer vigil was to show respect and dignity to members of the immigrant community who've been persecuted, harassed, and discriminated against in recent years.

As evident by comments by such notables as Tom Bennett, local anti-immigrant group President Elise "deer in headlights" Marciano and her band of goons, and bigots who hide behind such notable names as "Voice of Reason" and "AMERICA FIRST" on the News-Times board, the level of intolerance is reaching a boiling point in Danbury. With incidents of anti-immigrant fanatics shouting racial slurs and harassing people in Danbury on the rise, organizers Rev. Gail Keeney-Mulligan, of St. John's Episcopal Church, and Jean Hislop felt that it necessary to assemble a vigil and speak out against intolerance.

The message of the event was two fold, one was to respect and love one another, and the other was to speak out against intolerance and make sure that those in political office hear your message. As an individual who has attended just about every immigrant-related event in Danbury, I can honestly say that this event was one of the most uplifting events to date with each member of the clergy offering one insightful message after another.

After the prayer service, I caught up with Hislop and Rev. Keeney-Mulligan to get their views on the vigil.



Of course, as with most immigrant-supporting moments, the event couldn't go without members of Marciano's group making an complete ass of themselves.

Taking a quote from the our favorite deer, it was very "telling" that NO ONE from Elise Marciano's group came down and attended the religious ceremony opting instead of showing their real intentions.


One anti-immigrant member did his usual holding of the protest sign and was basically harmless and ignored by the most people who walked up and down Main Street. After about a half an hour of getting NO response from anyone, he rolled up his tired sign, put his tail between his legs, and walked away.



Although the trusty sign holder acted with common sense, one stupid anti-immigrant nutjob did the unthinkable...harass those in attendance, yelled, shouted, disrupt the vigil.

The Stop the Raids blog recalled the incident with Danbury's version of "Ugly Betty"

The event was not even marred slightly by the few anti immigrant protesters who found their way down to the site of the Vigil, intent on creating disruption. One man held up a sign that said "Immigrants have no rights" and another member of CTIC showed up and started loudly complaining. The man with the sign stood at a respectful distance, perhaps realizing that disrupting a religious assembly would be a very unintelligent move. The woman was quickly reminded of that, and left shortly.

Now a portion of this post is not entirely accurate because I went up and talked to this jerk who was stupid enough to disrupt a religious ceremony in front of the media.

After harassing anti-immigrant target Lynn Taborsak for several minutes, the local dumb-dumb was repeatedly reminded by several people around her that she was in the middle of a religious ceremony and was ask politely to quiet down. After several attempts to get her to do the right thing, I focused my camcorder on the tripod at the vigil, grabbed my camera, and made my way to this moron and asked her how could she be so insensitive and disrupt a religious vigil.

After hearing her anti-immigration rant, I cut her off and reminded her that A.) I have a camera, B.) she's really making herself look bad in front of me and C.) I'm taking a note of her outrageous behavior. At that point, realizing who I was she quieted down and didn't have that much more to say. Convinced that I encountered that the first person on the planet with one less chromosome than every other human being, I shook my head in dismay as she wobbled away.

Enough of the local dolts...

Overall, the vigil was peaceful and quite encouraging sign of solidarity. Hopefully, this will not the last of these types of events as it was received positively in the community.

Due to the length of the vigil, I had to cut the video into two portions. You can watch part one by clicking here and part two by clicking here.

For those who don't want to watch the entire vigil, below is a video highlight of the event.