Is the westboro baptist church hiding behind religion?

[canadaski]

I've been quite interested in the westboro baptist church recently and done some research. First of all, I should make it clear that I'm an atheist.

Anyway, I have been watching videos showing Fred Phelps, Shirley Phelps and others reacting to confrontation. As you may know, their main slogan is "God hates <insert societal group here>." They should be charged with numerous counts of hate speech and hate crimes, yet they have not.

As long as their freedom of speech is expressing their loyalty to their religion, the views of the religion are irrelevant. It can't be classed a hate crime until the views become personal. If their protest signs said "we hate fags" or "I hate fags" instead of "god hates fags," that would be an entirely different matter and could easily be deemed hate speech.

What if the westboro baptist church is not a religious group, but wants to appear as one. They are using religion as a scapegoat to express their hateful messages. I always wondered why they are completely unfazed when someone attacks their religious beliefs, it's because they have none.

Now, what have they gained. At first glance, not a heck of a lot. It should come as no surprise that 4 out of fred's 14 children are attorneys for the phelps chartered law firm. They do nothing that directly goes against the law books, but their bigotry and hate provokes others to commit crimes against them. They then sue the offenders for large sums of money. Because of this, the phelps family has become extremely wealthy, turning hatred into business. Their "god" seems to hate just about everything, the purpose of this is to repulse and anger as many groups of people as they can. They love being "americas most hated family;" the more people that hate them means more people take criminal action against them, the more money they make.

I certainly agree that the whole family is one fucked up bunch, but they are clever. They routinely take advantage of the judiciary system in the US and use laws that were meant to prevent acts such as theirs to bring money into their business. Who knows what else they are doing behind the scenes?

I am far from being the only one that knows this, yet noone has taken any action. Why doesn't the government do anything to prevent being taken advantage of?

[Sugaree]

I agree with DNSU here, they crave attention. On top of that, yes, they use religion as a hiding mechanism for their speech. I personally don't like what they say, claiming that God pretty much hates anything and everything (which sounds a bit like the Mormonist God if you ask me), but their right to say it IS protected. However, the issue comes up about hate speech.

In my interpretation of the first amendment, hate speech is protected unless it goes directly against a specific person. For example, if WBC said "God hates George Michael", he can sue them for libel. But by saying "God hates fags", they're going against a group made out of multiple persons and not one specific person in the group.

[canadaski]

I agree with DNSU here, they crave attention. On top of that, yes, they use religion as a hiding mechanism for their speech. I personally don't like what they say, claiming that God pretty much hates anything and everything (which sounds a bit like the Mormonist God if you ask me), but their right to say it IS protected. However, the issue comes up about hate speech.

In my interpretation of the first amendment, hate speech is protected unless it goes directly against a specific person. For example, if WBC said "God hates George Michael", he can sue them for libel. But by saying "God hates fags", they're going against a group made out of multiple persons and not one specific person in the group.

They would NEVER get away with the hate if it were racially propagated. Why is it considered alright to lay hate down on other minorities?

My main point was that they preach false values for the sole purpose of provoking people into committing crimes against them. They know that the people committing these crimes against them aren't the type of person that would have a shred of hope in a legal battle. They take avantage of this to sue these people in court and incur financial gain. They have all admitted that they are too preoccupied with scheduled pickets to work in their real jobs. All of their wealth certainly doesn't come from charitable donations.

I hear all of these people talking about America being a free country and such, defending what was written on a sheet of paper several hundred years ago. The political system in the states seems very postmodern and counterproductive. If these freedom of speech and expression amendments meant anything at all to the general population, gay marriage and relationships would be legal nationwide. You can't allow overlap where people are allowed to pick and choose what's okay and what isn't. No saying "this is a free country, except for that same sex relationship thing."

Until this overlap is eliminated in several areas, the current reality is no; you do not live in a free country.

[jockguy14]

They are basically one big family of lawyers that is just waiting for anyone to throw a punch or do anything illegal against them so they can sue the crap out of them. They only have about 41 members in their church I believe.

[Vonn]

If they really are in this purely for the money, it can't be denied that they're fucking crafty, dancing around the First Amendment and flipping off the entire world as they do so.

They're horribly offensive and the entire world would be delighted if they fucked off into space or something, but really. They're clearly brainwashed. If everybody ignored them, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.