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handed Norman a sign on a stick.  “Oh, that’s wonderful!”  Faith McCoy turned him to face the light.  “Smile, Norman!  Cheesecake for breakfast!”
    That made Norman smile.  The best part of staying with Grandma was the food.  If he wanted cheesecake for breakfast, she’d give it to him.  “He’s a big eater!” she’d tell anyone who dropped in, which in Marietta, Georgia was high praise indeed.
    “Let me get another just in case.”  She looked through the view finder to make sure that the sign wasn’t washed out by the glare, and that its message was clear.  NO SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR SODOMITES! 
    “Wonderful!” 
    Norman heard a brisk clapping that he immediately recognized as his father’s.  “Okay, ladies, are we ready to go?”
    “Oh Lord, yes, we sure are!”
    “All right then!  We are fed up with having the gay agenda crammed down our throats!  This resolution by our county commissioners, one year ago, that condemned the gay lifestyle, that was the Lord’s work!”
    “Amen!”
    “And those people are there in the town square to condemn the Lord’s work!  On Sunday!  The Lord’s day!”
    “Yes!”
    “To undo the Lord’s work!”
    “No!”
    “Then let’s go show them the Word of the Lord!”
    “Yes, Amen!”
    Norman was thrilled to be part of a parade.  He’d seen the disappointment on his father’s face at the turnout, and he’d tried to make sense of what the church’s members were saying as they waited for the go-ahead from Reverend McCoy.
    “They have police on the rooftops, you know.  There was a threat on that computer thing, I think.”
    “Yes, the paper said it was on the internet computer network, I heard that.” 
    “What’s the internet computer network?”
    “Oh, I don’t know.  Devil’s work, I’m sure.” 
    The small group, only about a dozen strong, marched determinedly towards the town square.  Norman could hear the amplified voice of a speaker there. 
    “If there is going to be justice for some, there must be justice for all.  The gay and lesbian community does not stand alone.  If you want to attack them, you attack us.”
    Faith snorted.  She whispered to Miss June, “That’s the Jew.  The Rabbi or whatever.  Figures he’d be on the devil’s side.”
    Miss June nodded, taking a firmer grip on her sign, on which she’d painstakingly painted LEVITICUS 18:22 AND 20:13!!! 
    Their makeshift parade slowed, then stalled, at the sight of police cars blocking the path to the town square. 
    “Oh!” Faith cried out, “look up there.  That’s Jerry Caulkins, Toby Caulkins’ boy.  He’s up on the roof.”
    “They got the high school boys in that club, the Law Enforcement Explorers, to help them cover the rooftops.  To look for snipers,” Matthew Paine said.  Norman found Matthew fascinating; in church on Sundays he would go into a trance almost as soon as the music began, his face clenching and contorting as his hands waved above him in the air.  Norman watched him every time, awestruck at the transformation.
    “Snipers!” Miss June said, putting a hand on her heart.
    Matthew nodded.  “Someone said the pink triangles all those queers will be wearing on their shirts would make good targets.”  He smiled as he said it, and the ladies tittered nervously.
    A sheriff’s deputy stood in front of one of the cars parked in the road.  He raised a hand.  “Hold up there, Reverend.  We’re trying to keep this civil today.”
    Reverend McCoy’s eyebrows shot up.  “Why, Jeremiah, we have no intention of being uncivil.  This is the anniversary of Reverend Doctor King’s speech at the March on Washington, isn’t it?  That’s why the…gathering in the square chose this day, right?  And we’re just doing what Doctor King worked so hard to allow us to do – protest peacefully.”
    Jeremiah shook his head.  “This isn’t a free speech issue, today, Reverend.  It’s a security issue.”  They all looked up as a