Savannah bloggers and Facebookers were all abuzz yesterday over the announcement that our little city will be a stop on the Westboro Baptist Church Tour of Crazy Hate.

Ya know, the “God Hates Fags” people? The group of “Christians” that holds up signs like “God Hates America” at soldiers’ funerals? Declared Islamic prophet Mohammed a whoremonger and President Obama the Anti-Christ? Charming lot, nu?

They’ve got an ambitiously whirlwind schedule planned (notice I’m linking you to Bill Dawers’ post so you don’t have to contaminate yourself by going to their website,) touching on LGBT-friendly high schools and all kinds of churches and of course, our Jewish Educational Alliance and two of Savannah’s three synagogues (poor Agudath Achim. Everyone always seems to overlook the Conservative Movement in this country.)

Personally, I am giddy with excitement. I’m also eager to see how they plan to get from downtown (where I plan to be shaking a tambourine and my behonkus and singing Debbie Friedman songs on the steps of Mickve Israel) across Derenne to BB Jacob in 15 minutes at rush hour. Of all the awesome non-violent counterprotests being planned, I think a most effective one would involve a couple of extra horse carriages full of tourists and a fleet of old ladies in Cadillacs trying to parallel park on Monterey Square.

Some folks are incensed that these a**holes are slithering out of their Midwest mudholes to come to Savannah (“We like to take vacations, don’t you?” one WBC protestor told a journalist recently.) There are good reasons to get angry. The WBC rhetoric is not only offensive and hurtful, but infuriatingly legal. In fact, so legal that it’s suspicious. A Tennessee journalist offers compelling evidence that Head Whacko Fred Phelps actual intention is nothing more than greed:

What he does is try to make you break the law by trying to punch your sensibilities about everything you hold dear, and then sue you and everyone municipality around him to the max.

Phelps and his crew of sick aren’t trying to save anyone’s souls—they’re trying to bait us into violating their right to free speech so they can file a lawsuit. The site God Hates Fred Phelps has a comprehensive timeline on WBC shenanigans if you feel spending your precious time on earth caring.

Yes, I hear the righteous and reasonable among ye lobbying that we should completely ignore these evildoers and that by engaging we simply feed their poisonous fire, but what’s the fun in that? Especially when you can think up fabulously clever anti-WBC signs to share with everyone?

Here’s the deal: Hate can only be fought with love and laughter. Annoying, but true. And if you meet the WBC wackadoodles with anything but that, they will sue the pants right off your ass. So let’s turn this into an opportunity of unity for Savannah—a chance to dance in the streets and shake our freaky heads at these poor, deluded souls who will never know a community of tolerance, diversity and joy.