Warped Tour’s Pro-Life/All Lives Matter Tent Drawing Criticism

I am fully pro choice, but I'm not sure I have an issue with this group being at Warped, assuming a pro choice group would also be allowed to appear at Warped.

 

I took the "all lives matter" thing as referring to fetuses as lives, given the pro-life slant of the tent. And yes, I understand the very recent origins of the phrase.

Shitty either way, just arguing semantics.

 

Somehow I missed seeing this tent/behavior at Warped on Saturday. I would have been really, really upset if I had. It's absolutely disgusting to be asking kids questions about hot-button issues.

To be clear: I'm not happy with the tent being present there, but could overlook it if they weren't posting pictures on Twitter with kids who look like they're < 16 years old holding up signs. That's borderline exploitative.

Edit: nah, I'm actually pretty mad that the tent's there to begin with, but take more issues with the whole publicly-pressuring-minors thing.

 

Allison Weiss posted about this tent on Facebook the other day and she had the best response ever: just walk away. I find it odd that a political group of any kind would be hanging out at Warped Tour - is that normal? Is that a thing that normally happens?

 

I have a hard time believing Anne Frank of all people would be backing this sort of thing.

 

I mean, this totally could be some weird "white people matter too!" thing that's a strange hybrid of pro-life beliefs and the All Lives Matter...countermovement, for lack of a better term...but why combine them, you know? One message would seem to take focus off the other. Is the evidence the Anne Frank hashtag, as in, "Jewish people are persecuted too!"? I could see that. Otherwise I just wonder if they believe they're hijacking an ugly phrase and think they're turning it into a positive with the underlying idea that "life begins at conception" (ergo, all "lives," including fetuses, matter).

 

I haven't been to Warped Tour since 2010 so I can't speak for recent history, but PETA has always had a big presence at Warped Tour in the past in the area where I grew up (VA Beach). Their headquarters is a city over in Norfolk so they've always had a big presence in the 757 area. I believe they have a presence nationally with the tour as well.

 

This is how I saw it as well, harnessing something that is already being used in a different context. A little shady and disrespectful of this issue from which the phrase originated? Yeah, I'd say so. Whatever though, I'm sure they're being taken to task already.

 

Occams Razor: If you're using the very well known phrase on your shirts and jumping into the hashtag on social media platforms ...

 

Yeah, can't really trust people on the wrong side of history to be really thinking their strategies through too well...

 

It's either to profit from it (searching on Google has them promoting the sale of their clothes with the phrase, using the hashtag, going back into last year) or support it ... both are fucked up IMO.

 

I guess I don't understand the issue here. If the point is that the conversation is inappropriate, then neither pro-choice nor pro-life type information stands should be there.

Removing the All Lives Matter t-shirt aspect of it, I don't see any issue with having a pro-life propaganda booth there alongside the swarm of liberally focused propaganda booths as well (and I'm pro-choice FWIW).

 

pretty disgusting. i like how this has seemingly no connection to music other than knock off glamour kills fonts for shirts. transparently trying to indoctrinate young, naive kids into buying into this shit

 

Weird. I've never been to Warped Tour, but I just thought it was bands - I had no idea other groups like this had tents and stuff. Seems to be more trouble than it's worth. I can't imagine I'd be happy if I took my kid to a festival to see their favorite bands and then they were bombarded with propaganda.

 

This is generally my take on it.

That said, I don't feel right telling people what they should and should not get offended over.

 

I saw this tent at Camden and was surprised this organization is still around and at secular events like warped. Im assuming this is the same group that used to be at all the Christian festivals back in the day claiming that abortion is murder and the MTV is the enemy for being pro choice.

 

Lol Peta is completely different than this

 

It does stand mentioning that the tent is being run primarily by men on an issue that primarily affects women. Men certainly have a stake in the issue, but no man will have to carry a child around for nine months. This is like having a Hispanic rights group show up and it's all white people. It's weird to say the least.

Yeah, if you remove entire portions of what this group represents, sure they don't seem as bad. You might also want to forget about the part where they're marketing this to teenagers. This is different from encouraging conversation on a politically charged topic -- now they're monetizing it, too.

 

If a kid walked into Warped without already being handed a vegan pamphlet at the gate I would be so amazed

 

As someone who grew up in a very religious, anti-choice environment, I can't begin to explain the devastating effects that indoctrination like this can have on young women. Painting abortion as murder (when many cases are life-saving and necessary) and Planned Parenthood as evil baby killing clinics is so wildly irresponsible. It sets them up to be afraid of learning about reproductive rights and often leads to a complete lack of knowledge about their own bodies. There are some embarrassingly simple things that should be common knowledge in your teens that I didn't learn until I was in my 20s because of this kind of religious hemming and hawing over women's bodies and choices.

The fact that Kevin allows this tent on his tour further proves what we've been saying for years- they do not care about women. Given their track record, I'm certain about 0 effort went into finding a counterpart pro-choice group to be on the tour. The young people that attend this tour deserve better.

 

Wow, Warped really changed from the last time I went. From what i remember, there were some panels/table for cancer and some community organizations.

 

This is extremely disappointing. When I was a young teen and worshiped the scene, Warped and things like it were where I felt safe and welcome and free to be who I am and while I realize now that it's not those things for me I can't imagine if I had gone there and seen something like this and it makes me sad for the young people who will. Bummer