Apparently God loves epic lulz. Check out this round-up of 35 hilarious and moving rebuttals to the hate-filled shenanigans of Westboro Baptist Church. My favorite sign of the bunch is carried by the Anon in the Guy Fawkes mask: “I herd God lieks Mudkipz”. Humor and ridicule can be powerful weapons.
See all of the signs here.… Read the rest
Pointing out Fox News’ editorial bias is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, and almost not worth noting anymore. Still, examples like this do an excellent job of illustrating the “news” network’s willingness to sacrifice fact in favor of its national agenda as an arm of the Republican party.
The caption from this screenshot describes the notoriously homophobic fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church as a “left-wing cult”. Left-wing as compared to Fox News, maybe, but not in any normal sense of the term. The writer also takes pains to describe church leader Fred Phelps as a “Democrat”. It should be noted that Phelps was born and raised in the Mississippi of the 1940s. At that time, the southern branch of the Democratic Party was extremely conservative: staunch supporters of segregation and the preservation of “the Southern way of life”. It just didn’t mean the same thing as it does today.… Read the rest
A worthy target of Anonymous’s ire, methinks. Via BetaBeat:
The Westboro Baptist Church, widely reviled for its homophobic beliefs and protests of veteran funerals, announced on Saturday that it would picket at Sandy Hook Elementary School following the tragic shooting there Friday that took the lives of 27 people. Members of Anonymous began an operation against the Church to discourage them from protesting at the school and compounding the misery already experienced by Newtown residents.
In a video uploaded by KY Anonymous, the hacker collective states:
We will not allow you to corrupt the minds of America with your seeds of hatred…
This kid is a genius. Mark Memmott reports on NPR:
Patty Akrouche says she’s “never been prouder” of her 9-year-old son, Josef Miles, than she was this past weekend.
As Akrouche wrote on her Facebook page, she and Josef were on the campus of Washburn University in Topeka when they encountered some of the protesters from the tiny Westboro Baptist Church, which has gained notice in recent years for protesting against homosexuality, abortion and other issues outside the funerals of military veterans and celebrities.
Westboro’s followers are infamous for their signs that — using an F-word we won’t repeat — say ‘God Hates [Homosexuals].’
“Josef was determined to make his own statement so we went to the car and with pencil and his sketch pad, he made up his own little sign that reads ‘GOD HATES NO ONE,’ ” his mom wrote…
Wondering what it would be like to live in a cult? British documentarian Louis Theroux spent several days in the Kansas homes of members of the Westboro Baptist Church and filmed the experience for the BBC — basically opening a giant can of crazy.
Warren Richey writes in the Christian Science Monitor:
Supreme Court Justice Alito is the lone dissenter in the 8-to-1 ruling on free-speech principles, saying the conduct of the Westboro Baptist Church ’caused petitioner great injury.’
In an important reaffirmation of free speech principles, the US Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that noxious, highly offensive protests conducted outside solemn military funerals are protected by the First Amendment when the protests take place in public and address matters of public concern.
The high court ruled 8 to 1 that members of the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church are entitled to stage their controversial antigay protests even when they cause substantial injury to family members and others attending the funeral of a loved one.
“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and – as it did here – inflict great pain,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
Ms. Smith writes on Network World:
According to Anonymous, Westboro Baptist Church was behind the Open Letter allegedly from Anonymous, and then added fuel to the flames with WBC’s “Bring it” reply. Anonymous warns don’t DDoS, it’s a trap to collect IPs for suing.
Twitter is on fire with the news of an upcoming troll-on-troll feud of Anonymous vs. Westboro Baptist Church. In case you missed it — in an Open Letter, Anonymous allegedly told the anti-gay, fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church to stop the hate now or else “the damage incurred will be irreversible” and “neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover.” The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church struck back, telling Anonymous to “bring it!” and that God hates “lousy hackers.”
In-between the two, this other Open Letter from Anonymous gained less attention, but told WBC that Anonymous knew it was a trap, and the short-on-money, thrive-on-attention WBC was in fact behind the first Open Letter supposedly from Anonymous.
An update of ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’ titled ‘Santa Will Take You To Hell,’ this is sure to earn a place in the modern believer’s seasonal songbook. Actually, it’s nice to see a Christian group that acknowledges that Christmas is a pagan holiday.
Whatever a person may feel about the politics surrounding the multiple issues involved, lessons can be taken from the small community that found a way to beat Fred Phelps at his own game, legally and morally, with non-violent techniques. Via UPI.
WESTON, Mo., Nov. 7 — A small Missouri town turned out to keep Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church from protesting a soldier’s funeral.
The funeral of Sgt. First Class C.J. Sadell, who died Oct. 24 from wounds in Afghanistan, was held Saturday in Weston, Mo.
“I’d say probably half the people in Weston are here,” Marine veteran Eric Moser told WDAF-TV, Kansas City, Mo.
Sadell was in the Arif Kala region of Afghanistan when his unit was ambushed Oct. 5. He was 34 and leaves a wife and two sons.
“We got everybody here early so we could take up all the parking spots,” said Rebecca Rooney, who organized the supporters.
Jess Bravin reviews the upcoming docket of the U.S. Supreme Court, starting with a case relating to the Westboro Baptist Church, infamous for its “God Hates” placards, for the Wall Street Journal:
Free speech stands front and center in the Supreme Court term beginning next week, in a pair of cases testing the First Amendment’s reach in the digital age.
On Oct. 6, the justices will weigh whether the First Amendment protects a Kansas church’s campaign to publicize its beliefs by picketing military funerals with vulgar placards and insulting fallen soldiers’ survivors in online screeds.
The father of a fallen Marine is seeking damages for emotional distress from the church, which believes that God is killing American soldiers to punish the U.S. for its tolerance of homosexuality.
A month later , the court is to consider whether states can bar minors from buying violent videogames, on the theory that these games cause damage to developing minds and this outweighs young people’s constitutional rights.
