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| Fred Phelps, the scumbag patriarch behind the WBC |
The Westboro Baptist Church, or the WBC for short, is a hate group posing as a religious practice centered in Topeka, Kansas. They have an anti-American agenda that focuses on condemning primarily military personnel and homosexuals. One of WBC's favorite methods of attention mongering is picketing the funerals of our nation’s military heroes and those that live any sort of nonconforming lifestyle. By gathering large numbers of protesters, they effectively demonstrate their lack of moral basis and insane assumption that should a god exist, that entity favors the exploitation and hatred towards fellow man. Led by founder Fred Phelps, the organization has grown both with the aid of the internet and the growth of his family. The WBC is primarily controlled by the various members of the Phelps family who have defended themselves with legal degrees. They are notorious for playing the victim in legal situations to exploit whoever necessary to gain funding.
The purpose of the WBC's message is rather unclear. In my research for this blog post I was not able to find a stated purpose for the church's existence other than to spread the message that god hates america and our ways. They claim America is immoral for our acceptance of deviant lifestyles and our support for our nations military. One thing however that nobody seems to understand is, how the WBC can justify their obvious lack of human dignity and still retain the fallacy that they will be "redeemed" or "saved" by their non-existent sky friend. Even if a god existed what kind of monster would condone these actions and reward them with eternal life? The WBC's ever tasteful (sarcasm) website domain, gadhatesfags.com, is a testament to their outlandish attention hogging. They know people will be outraged by their coarse language but yet that pleases them, knowing that they are being noticed. In response to the WBC, many prominent celebrity figures have donated large sums of money to charities that benefit the gay community as well as aiding families of deceased soldiers. They claim that they are trying to show America its transgression and abominations but yet the only abominations most people notice are the church's almost insane dogma. Personally, I consider Christianity and most other forms of religious worship to be insane but the actions of the WBC are far more horrific and intolerable than that of those who simply keep to themselves.
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| WBC protesters |
If it has not been abundantly clear already, I believe the Westboro Baptist Church is a disgrace to humanity however I am a firm believer in the protection of personal rights and liberties. Therefore I understand and acknowledge their right to free speech despite my utter resentment and disgust for each and every one of them. Generally the response most people have to the WBC is one similar to mine. Counter protests usually occur right next to WBC protests in an effort to outnumber and block out the negative messages they spread. The complete lack of moral standards within the WBC is shocking yet these are the kinds of things that can happen to the world when crazy people are given a foundation to speak off of. The WBC is just another reason why religion is detrimental to our world.
