Photo: Saturday Chores
It's been a rough year for women's reproductive rights. But in the furor over Hobby Lobby, the case that was decided a few days earlier, (eliminating Massachusetts' 35-foot buffer zone) fell a bit out of the spotlight. Now, a young couple from North Carolina have taken up protesting the protestors using a unique style of free speech—and have stolen the viral spotlight in the process.
Here, we speak with husband and wife duo Tina Haver Currin and Grayson Haver Currin, 27 and 31 respectively, about what it feels like to stand with (and stand up to) abortion protestors, keeping a sense of humor about it, and the blog they started to document their experience, Saturday Chores.
Why did you initially set up your blog, Saturday Chores?
Tina Haver Currin: I set up the blog two days ago, and that was mostly a reaction to the fact that we've been doing this since March 8th: We had a lot of these pictures, and they were kind of disparate, on Instagram and Facebook. But the response we got was pretty overwhelming. As time went on, people asked to see them in a compiled location.
Why is it important to you to do this—to protest the protestors in this way?
THC: From my point of view, when we were driving by the first time, I looked over at Grayson and I could feel him bristle up a bit. I was driving and I was like, "Don't yell at them!" I think that was the reaction we both wanted to have, but we knew that wasn't going to be productive. This appealed to us as a way to do something that isn't throwing up a middle finger and driving on by. It combats the hateful rhetoric with humor.
Grayson Haver Currin: In North Carolina, we've been, for a southern state, one of the leaders of trying to build a more progressive South. In the past several years, we've suffered a lot of setbacks with this Republican legislature: It's one of the first times in our state's history that both houses of the legislature have been Republican. It's a frustrating time to be in North Carolina, a place we've lived in all our life. There's the feeling that these people we voted against, that our friends voted against, we're being kind of overrun by them. Trying to have a voice before the next election is important. Moral Monday is a big thing near us. Tina was actually arrested while participating in it 13 months ago. We're two kids with jobs and pets and stuff, but we care about our state and our future. It felt like a small way to fight back.
Photo: Saturday Chores
What's it like to stand there with those protestors?
THC: I sort of shake from head to toe pretty much every time. It's very upsetting; they say terrible things. I have a pretty strict no-talking rule. I don't really engage with them, but they engage with me. I try to smile and hold the sign.
GHC: I'm more assertive, and I will laugh in their faces. What they say is just funny to me. It's these things that are just so strange. I can't think of another way to react to it other than to laugh.
THC: They will say anything to get under your skin.
You mentioned in one photo that the protestors are praying for 'Grayson's wife,' so they've obviously gotten to know a bit about you. Have you ever felt threatened or unsafe? You're kind of playing on their turf.
GHC: Yeah, we're worried about that a little. Tina and I met because we're both interested in, as they would put it, the devil's music—we're heavy metal fans. We thought Jesus Slays would be a funny sign; it plays to all our interests at once. They were into it in the sense that they were saying things like "Yeah, you know, he's going to slay you." I feel like if they really wanted to, they could justify hurting us. But that was only one incident; last time they wanted to pray for us. Which was unnerving in a different way.
THC: They're not violent, but now that we've gotten a lot of attention online we've had to deal with that too.
GHC: Tina is an obsessive comment reader, so that gets a little scary too.
Have you interacted with or heard from any clinic visitors about what you're doing? Do you feel like you're having an impact?
GHC: We haven't. There's the legal barrier, where we have to stay a certain distance away. Due to that distance, there's a protestor with a Bluetooth headset and speaker, and they'll yell at these families going into the clinic, and really harass them. We've been able to stop them from doing that simply [by turning our camera phones on them] because they don't want us to record them doing that. They'll put their signs away too sometimes. We know for sure that the people entering the clinic while we're there are not being harassed or hearing anything they don't' want to hear.
How do you come up with your sign ideas? What's your next inspiration?
THC: We're just goofy, I think. We talk about it on the way to the clinic. We keep poster board in the car, and just spit out ideas. We'll flip-flop who's holding the sign and who's taking pictures each week so we're sharing the heat.
GHC: We kind of send each other texts throughout the week if we have an idea. Mostly, I'll have 10 ideas at once and Tina will say "one of those was good." Her quality to quantity ratio is better than mine.
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