The Final Solution for Westboro Baptist Church

[jmowreader]

The "Church" You Love To Hate does all this outrageous shit under guise of being a "church."

If we can possibly get these guys declared to be not a church by the federal government, they can be legally shut down.

[Speck Tater]

1. I don't see how that could ever fly.

The "Church" of Scientology would have been shut down years ago if that were even possible.

[jmowreader]

2. The "Church" of Scientology is nominally a religious organization

If you look at the Scientologists, all their weird-ass shit with the tin can machine, the thetans and all that shit have at least a nominal religious purpose. Yes, it's a cult, we all know it's a cult, but the Constitution gives every person in America the right to belong to a religious cult. Read the First Amendment.

Also consider: you'd probably call the Masons and their subgroup the Shriners a cult based on their rituals, but Masons and Shriners are good upstanding people. (Plus Jack Chick hates them, which is a bonus in my eyes.)

OTOH, there is another group out there who masks its hate behind religious trappings: the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. No one who isn't actually in that organization believes it's either Christian or a church--it is a hate group. The government calls it a hate group. If the KKK went to the IRS and attempted to get a tax exemption because they're a religion, the IRS agent wouldn't laugh in their faces, he'd call in the biggest guy in the place and have him slap the shit out of the Klukkers just for pissing him off.

Now! Take the KKK, change "black" to "gay" and exchange the robes for signs, and you've just produced Westboro. It's not a church. Anyone who thinks it is is a fool.

[Speck Tater]

4. Westboro Bapstist Church is nominally a religious organization.

Everything they do and say is "justified" by reference to scripture. To say "It's not a church" does not, in fact, make that claim true, nor does it falsify their claim to be a church. You haven't provided one bit of substantive evidence that it is not a church.

To paraphrase your own "argument":

Now! Take the KKK, change "black" to "witch" or "Jew" and exchange the robes for different colored robes, and you've just produced the Catholic Church during the Inquisition. It's not a church. Anyone who thinks it is is a fool.

So if your argument holds for Westboro it holds equally well for the Catholic Church. Carried far enough your argument could be used to claim that there is no such thing as a "church" anywhere on planet Earth.

They are certainly a despicable bunch but legally you will never get away with trying to strip them of their right to use the name "church".

[MuseRider]

3. Look, I live here

and there is not one thing that could possibly be thought up, cooked up, rigged up or simply tried over and over and over again that we have not done. If this was possible it would already have been done. Everyone seems to think that there are solutions and that this community (I live outside of the community now but spent my life there) simply has chosen to live with these creeps.

More power to you if you want to try again but it is expensive and they always win and you will end up paying for all of it, over and over again. We have to the tune of millions.

I applaud your enthusiasm, there is nothing that would make me or most all of us around here happier than to see them shut down and put in their places. You see them maybe once in your life or just see them in magazines or online. We see them daily, often in more than one place within a 10 minute drive. Has been like this for many years. If there was a trick that could be done we would have done it. Still....keep thinking. I will back you 100% if you can figure it out.

[niyad]

5. I think the only thing that will help is a tornado that takes out that building and everyone in it.

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. One thing your community hasn't tried....

A good ol' fashioned Tarring and Feathering.

Just like they used to do to nuisance individuals.

[MuseRider]

8. I must admit

that that solution has a certain charm to it.

[glen123098]

6. Why would you want to do that?

Sure you'll stop a hateful group, but they are a legitimate church. They have their set of beliefs that are based upon religion, despite how stupid they are. They have sermon every sunday, they follow a set of doctrine. I do not see anyway they are not a church. If you start having the federal government declare religions you dont like not a religion, when will it end?

One of the best things about our country is that the Westboro Baptist Church is allowed to exist. Sure they are hateful, but the act of forcefully shutting them down causes far more harm to our culture than Fred Phelps himself could ever do. In a free society, you have to deal with assholes. Just ignoring him is the best solution.

[niyad]

9. you, clearly, have never been on the receving end of the hatefulness of this group, as so many of us

have. are they a "church"? defined by what, exactly? do you know what their doctrine is?

you cannot "just ignore" a group that preaches hatred and violence, that puts itself at the forefront, in people;s faces. perhaps you could educated yourself about what it is they really do before you come in here and tell those with real world experience dealing with these hatemongers how to handle them.

[glen123098]

10. I know all about the westboro baptist church.

I have been kinda obsessed with them for several years. I've watched several documentaries on them includin the fantastic "the most hated family in america." I have searched every corner of their website, and even listened to a few a Fred Phelps' hilarious sermons. I have studied some of their court cases, and read a ton of them. I have watched several interviews of them on Cspan, and insternet interviews. I find them to be a fascinating group.


SO to say I don't know what I'm talking about is BS. Yes, they are a church. Their doctrine is the king james version of the bible. Their are versus in the bible that promote their cause such as Leviticus 20:13, which calls for the death penalty for homosexuals, which are some of the reasons I'm not a christian. The westboro cult has never been involved in violence. All of their protests have been non violent at least on their end. They are using their constitutional right to protest, as perverted as it may seem. Yes, they preach hatred, but we have no hate speech laws in this country, those would be unconstitutional. But they do not preach violence.


Yes they are a church. They believe as much fruity nonsense as any other church I know. So in my opinion, they have a right to exist. They have that right granted to them by the 1st and 14th amendment. So yes, just ignore them. The more attention you give them, the bigger a threat they become.


But I do not want to say that taking legal action against them wouldn't be entirlly unjustified, just not in the area of religion, which they are perfectly within their right. Fred Phelps is a very well known child abuser, and I believe that a better course of action would be to call the Kansas CHild protection services on him. Religion is not a justifable excuse for child abuse.