Westboro Baptists

The miserable nutters of the Westboro Baptist Church have announced plans to picket Ryan Dunn's funeral. The Jackass prankster died in a car crash on Monday.

Citing the porn-level filth the deceased pervert hawked during his Jackass career (specifically, inserting a toy car up his rectum for entertainment ), Fred Phelps' band of haters will descend on any public memorial/funeral held for Dunn to protest.

Ryan Dunn Is In Hell! announces the group's press release, which slams his vulgar stunts supposedly enabled by raping priests, selfish faithless parents and lying fag/dyke/whore 'teachers' [who taught] him and his entire generation to sin like the devil himself.

Indie director Kevin Smith's new film Red State was picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church on Sunday.

Red State is said to be a scathing satire on Christian fundamentalists and was making its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.

However, Smith was ready to exploit the picket. He and an estimated 200 supporters launched a counter protest. Smith, an astute businessman as well as a creative force, utilized the Westboro picket to create even more buzz for his film's launch at Sundance.

Red State is being billed as a different kind of horror movie, a movie exploiting the horror of Christian fundamentalism and ultraconservative right wing American values. The plot centers around three teenage boys in search of sexual experience and their contact with a frightening clan of Christian extremists.

In fact the film features a gay-hating minister and a frightening band of homophobic Christian bigots remarkably similar to the Westboro Baptist Church.

The nutters of the Westboro Baptists have taken aim at a gay themes play in LA.

They were set to protest outside the downtown Pico Playhouse who are putting on a production of The Laramie Project .

This is a play by Moisés Kaufman and is based on news reports, journal entries and more than 200 interviews of people in Laramie in the aftermath of the murder of Matthew Shepard. It covers the town's reactions, the funeral and the trial of the killers (the court found that their motive for the attack was that Matthew Shepard was gay). The play does not advance a gay agenda (contrary to what the WBC contends) and has been performed nationwide and all over the world (including high school and college productions) since 2000. The Westboro Baptists are featured in it (they picketed Matthew Shepard's funeral) and they often picket its performances.

The Westboro Baptists have outlined their objections in typical hateful style:

Judy Shepard raised her son to be a disobedient pervert, and God cut that child off. His blood is on her hands! From the day that he was cut off to today, Judy Shepard has spent all her resources on teaching the young people of this nation the same rebellion that caused God to cut off her own son; and making a profit on it! How sick is it to make money off of a child who is dead at your hands?! Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for twelve years, with eternity left to go on his sentence; without appeal, parole, or time off for good behavior. All else about Matt is trivial and irrelevant. Deal with it! Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Gal. 6:7.

God Hates Fags! God Hates Fag-Enablers! Ergo, God hates fag-infested & fag-enabling Los Angeles, CA and all having to do with spreading sodomite lies via The Laramie Project; a tacky piece of cheap, lying, fag propaganda masquerading as legitimate theater.

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith. Lev. 18:22, 23

On October 6, the US Supreme Court takes up a case examining whether members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, went too far when they staged a protest at a fallen marine's funeral in Maryland. The demonstrators hoisted signs proclaiming: You Are Going to Hell and Thank God for Dead Soldiers.

Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro church, has made a career out of using blunt and offensive statements to try to shock Americans into joining his crusade against gay rights. His followers show up at military funerals and announce that God is killing American soldiers for the sins of the country. Funeralgoers are urged to repent... or else.

In Maryland, it was too much for the grieving father, Albert Snyder, to endure. He sued. The case pits Snyder's First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in a church to mourn his son's passing against the Westboro protesters' right to chant harsh slogans and display shocking signs in their campaign for moral salvation of the nation.

I suspect neither Phelps nor Snyder will change their point of view no matter what happens in the case, says Christina Wells, a law professor and First Amendment scholar at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law: Somebody is going to be unhappy . But the debate [surrounding the case] hopefully will foster understanding of why we have the First Amendment we do.

...Read the full article

Comment: Supreme Court appears inclined to rule against funeral protesters

8th October 2010. See  article from  religionnewsblog.com

Despite free-speech concerns, Supreme Court justices sounded sympathetic to a lawsuit filed by the father of a Marine killed in Iraq whose funeral was picketed by protesters .

The justices appeared inclined to set a limit to freedom of speech when ordinary citizens are targeted with especially personal and hurtful attacks. The 1st Amendment says the government may not restrict free speech, but it is less clear when it shields speakers from private lawsuits.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer, usual defenders of the 1st Amendment, said they thought people could be sued for outrageous personal attacks. Kennedy said certain harassing conduct was not always protected as free speech. Torts and crimes are committed with words all the time, he said, referring to legal wrongs that result in lawsuits. The 1st Amendment doesn't stop state tort law in appropriate circumstances, Breyer added.

It will be several months before the court makes a ruling in the case.

Comic fans beware: The man who believes that god hates...well...everyone but his family is headed to San Diego Comic-Con on July 22.

Fred Phelps on the official Westboro Baptist Church site, wrote:

If these people would spend even some of the energy that they spend on these comic books, reading the Bible, well no high hopes here. They have turned comic book characters into idols, and worship them they do! Isaiah 2:8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: 9 And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not. It is time to put away the silly vanities and turn to God like you mean it.

The destruction of this nation is imminent - so start calling on Batman and Superman now, see if they can pull you from the mess that you have created with all your silly idolatry.

Hopefully the creative guys at Comic-Con can come up with an amusing counter action.

Update: Bite my shiny metal ass

26th July 2010. From inewp.com

Fortunately, those at Comic-Con knew about Westboro's plans and prepared to meet them head on in a counter-demonstration. Obviously, Phelp's followers were massacred.

Led by an individual in a Bender costume from the cartoon Futurama, Comic-Con nerds dressed in various outfits held humorous signs that effectively counter-demonstrated.

Memorable moments include Bender megaphoning Bite my shiny metal ass to the Westboro congregation while holding a sign that read Kill All Humans and a person in a Buddy Jesus getup holding up a God Loves Everybody sign contradicting Westboro's signs that read God Hates Fags , God is Your Enemy , You're Going To Hell . Signs like God Hates Kittens and God Hates Jedi also accompanied the counter-protest.

Odd bedfellows are standing side by side with Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church in a demonstration of First Amendment fundamentalism. They've filed a friend of the court brief in favor of the right to infuriate families of the fallen with those vicious funeral protests.

The list includes the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Dow Jones, the E.W. Scripps Company, the Hearst Corporation, NPR, The New York Times, and the Tribune Company (parent of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times).

Jeff Schogol of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported these companies joined other free-press advocates in supporting these hateful incitements:

The media organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church, which protests near service members' funerals because it believes that troops' deaths and other national tragedies are divine revenge for America's tolerance of gays and lesbians.

The father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who died in Iraq in 2006, sued the church for picketing near his son's funeral with signs that said God hates you, You're in hell and Semper Fi fags. They also distributed a flier with Snyder's picture on it that read Burial of an Ass.

Snyder's father, Al, won at trial, but he lost an appeal and was ordered to pay more than $16,000 in court costs. The latest case will be heard by the Supreme Court in the fall.

While not defending the Westboro Baptist Church's actions, the 22 media organizations argued that the church is protected by the First Amendment. They also contend that the case could have a chilling effect on news gathering if Al Snyder prevails.

In the brief, the media groups argue that speech cannot be deemed too offensive to be protected by the First Amendment.

A cryptic blog post on the Westboro Baptist Church’s website hints that their mission is coming to an end:

BECAUSE IT’S ALMOST TIME TO LEAVE…THAT’S WHY DUMMY!

We are particularly urgent about it, because the time is shortly to come when we will grant you your wicked wish, Doomed america!

Let us see how that is shortly now to play out, my angry little sodomite-loving friends. It’s about time for us to leave this place.

When we’re done, we will leave your filthy land and be placed safely out of the reach of the horror that will then land upon you swiftly and certainly – in one hour.

We pray it to be any day now, for the promises of our God are sure and certain. We finished our job in Napa County – one of the few we have left – and then went to tell the Saints of our God-blessed exploits and our joy.

We gotta go, peeps! We gotta go! And when we do, it’s time for this filthy nation to receive of all the plagues that your Creator has promised. The reason there is such urgency in those words … such passion in the irresistible call from our Saviour, Husband, and Friend … is because when that time comes for this rebellious nation – which is spiritually called Babylon and has become literally Babylon by the inexplicable and forcible snatching of that Mesopotamian land where ancient Babylon sat – it is going to be very fast and very violent, such that all mankind is utterly and simply amazed. Check out the words, fools … it’s all about the words!

Westboro recently lost a massive lawsuit and are bordering on bankruptcy. Their protests have resulted in a backlash from parties well beyond gays and lesbians. Their dynamic leader Fred Phelps is in bad health and some claim near death. Now they want to end their mission and go be with God.

Update: Should We Ignore Them

17th May 2009. See article from blog.beliefnet.com . Thanks to Alan

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas is at it again. This time the target is Jews.

Combining ancient and contemporary forms of anti-Semitism, they continue their traditional combination of hate-mongering and apocalyptic doom. But with only 71 members, I really wonder if it even makes sense to pay them any attention at all. What do you say?

Should groups like this be covered? Are we better off ignoring them? Is that something that decent people can afford to do?

Wherein lies the proper balance between the necessary monitoring of hate-groups and turning such monitoring into a lucrative fear-mongering business of its own?

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week affirmed the Casper, Wyoming City counsels decision not to allow anti-gay pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas to place an anti-gay monument in one of it's city parks, when the justices unanimously agreed that governments receiving monument donations for public parks are not compelled to take everything they are offered.

The city had placed a Ten Commandments statue, donated by the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, in a plaza along with other monuments of historical significance and Phelps had sought to place his own monument in the Casper plaza condemning homosexuality.

Phelp's monument stated: Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning ‘thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination. Leviticus 18:22.

Matthew Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and subsequently murdered because he was gay.

The Casper City Council had denied Phelps' request in both 2003 and 2007.

Phelps had argued it was his First Amendment right to have his monument included.