We often had so-called "apostates" at our district conventions. I had mixed feelings about their presence. Depending on my mood I was confused about why they would bother, or I would mentally sneer at them or ridicule them, OOOOR, sometimes their message touched me, because when the signs did not emphasize hatred of Jehovah's Witnesses but rather emphasized the love of Jesus, I secretly longed for THAT kind of religion instead of the empty one I had....
When I cared at all, I often felt it was rude and presumptuous of them to infringe on our private convention arrangements, but I see from Mouthy's comments that there weren't a lot of opportunities to reach us like there are now, and they were standing up for a very important cause and trying to help us as they had been helped.
Mouthy - I would dearly love to see some of those pictures of you all picketing!