Westboro Baptists (sic), the cretins who go to the funerals of our dead troops and protest American not killing gays or something akin to that perhaps serve a purpose. They are a group who are universally hated and despised by both the right, left and middle. They are right up there with 9-11 in that they are a great unifier.
Yesterday Cargosquid called our attention to a horrible situation. Albert Snyder, father of a slain Marine hero, now owes Westboro Baptist over $16,000 dollars for court costs. Snyder sued Westboro Baptist. He won. They appealed and won and were awarded court costs. Americans across the nation are coming to the support of the Snyder family. Bill O’Reilly of O’Reilly Factor of Fox News has stopped up to the plate and has said he will pay the entire amount Snyder has to pay.
Here is the background from Daily News:
Snyder was ordered to pay that amount to Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., an anti-gay group that travels the country picketing military funerals, after his lawsuit was overturned last week by a federal appeals court, the Sun reported. Phelp’s group says military deaths are God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality.
Snyder sued Westboro after its members waved signs saying “God hates fags” and “God hates the USA” at the 2006 funeral in Westminster of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who had been killed in Iraq.
A federal jury in Baltimore awarded Snyder $11 million in damages in 2007, saying Phelps’ group intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the family. The award was later reduced to $5 million, and eventually overturned on appeal. It is currently scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case is headed to the Supreme Court. Hopefully Westboro Baptist will be shut down and silenced. Freedom of speech is not without some limits. Most of us are very tired of this hate group getting a pass using our own Constitution. They represent all that is vile to people of all political flavors.
You haven’t heard the worst. The Westboro creeps are countersuing.
Over at Gateway Pundit: http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/fallen-marines-father-says-westboro-cult-is-trying-to-get-90000-from-him-audio/
“At Matthew’s funeral the Westboro cult showed up and harassed the family with their hateful signs and chanting. Matthew’s father Albert later took the cult to court for their reprehensible actions. He originally won his case but a judge later overturned it. In an outlandish decision this week the court ordered Albert Snyder to pay the Westboro cult’s legal costs.
Today Albert Snyder told Jamie Allman on 97.1 FM that the Westboro cult is trying to get $90,000 from his family.”
Audio there.
Texas has the right idea……
I have to admit that I do not have the slightest clue what these people at Westboro are about or what they think they are going to achieve. How their minds can put together a protest cocktail of gays and dead soldiers is beyond understanding. All I can imagine is that the pastor of that church must be a real life Elmer Gantry leading a flock of rubes.
That, and this is how they make their money.
I can’t imagine any people enjoying inflicting that much pain.
Making money…Cargo, you are right about Texas.
speaking of tort reform….
I do not agree with what anything that group has done. A soldier who has given his life (or time) to help defend this country (even in wars that you might not agree with) should be held in high esteem. Now, I will get ready for the arrows – what is the difference to what the soldiers family has had to endure, and what a raped woman endures when she enters an abortion clinic? What is the difference – the slogan is almost the same. Just sayin…. I am all for freedom of speech, but that does not mean that they should be in my face.
Audio with the father:
Why doesn’t the ‘Baptist’ church (assuming there is a ruling body) disown this group and sue to have them remove the name Baptist. I would think that any other normal Baptist church member would be ashamed of this connection.
Pat, degrees. I think both situations are horrible. Neither should be done. However, in the case of fallen soldiers, they were serving our country. On some scale, that places them on a different level than any private citizen.
I have personally heard the ‘noise’ at clinics. I hate it. However, it isn’t directed as much at the woman as it is the issue. It’s bad. Its horrible. I personally think it needs about a 100 foot distance between protester and entrance to the clinic.
I have never seen or heard Westboro ‘live.’ I expect it would make me want to kill someone. The above situation only brings out ‘hit’ in me. Westboro probably would bring out ‘kill.’
As angry as clinic scenes make me they are very different than what Westboro does.
I think they probably are, SA. I don’t think there is a heirarchy in the Baptist Church like there is in some other churches. Therefore they can’t boot someone out. They aren’t IN to start with.
This church is an independent baptist church. It’s not a member of a denomination. Anyone can call themselves “Baptist” or “Christian” or “Muslim”.
I agree that protests at either the clinic or the funeral sites are wrong – period, but there is a difference. The anti-abortion folks have had many successes, where people have stopped to listen and have been accepted into a community of support. I see no redeeming value in the Westboro efforts. I really do not know what encourages those folks.
Change the word ‘many’ to ‘some’ and I might agree, PWCPR.
I don’t know what the desired outcome is with Westboro. Neither do they.
Moon, the desired outcome with Westboro is obvious. Raise money.
They say evil follows the same course of action every time; it will destroy as much life in any way it can until it is surrounded and forced to destroy it’s self.
If I had my way… Well we are not living by the law of the jungle…yet…so i’ll omit that idea.
but if I was to peacefully have my way I would surround them (wbc) with a group of people holding large 6 foot rectangles. The inside facing wbc would be a mirror so they can do nothing but protest against there own image. The outside would have statements of support for the family in mourning.
That would be an interesting psychological warfare manuver… but generally the best approach is to completly ignore them untill they either give up or become so desperate for attention that they cross the line and get arrested…
… or shot in self defense.
bottom line, the wbc are a bunch of scumbags, but they can’t carry on forever. The memories of the fallen warriors will be held firm long after the wbc members have rotted away in their forgotten holes in the ground, transformed into into the scummy substance of their namesake.
Unique idea. Welcome back Rod. You have been missed.
Cargo, I think there is other motivation than money. Not sure what…
There are much easier ways to make money than being a contemptible AH.
@Moon-howler
Thanks Moon, been trying to refrain from getting into debates on blog comment sections (and have been doing very well so far) although I do lurk every day.
I have my own sleepy blog now hyperlinked to my name, not very political, it’s more of an art diary, though sometimes local politics seep into the pictures.
“Some people believe that God has revealed Himself to their tribe and
not to the barbarians. He despises all the same people they despise.
Others feel that God has given us gifts to be shared with others,
and we should walk softly and not be cruel in His name.”
Garrison Keillor
They are horrible … I can’t say that I have a great idea what to do about them though. Can harassment laws be applied?
I read somewhere that is what is going to be used, Rick. These people are real pigs, in my opinion. Name caller here!
Thanks Poor Richard. Very applicable quote!
Rod, I enjoyed your drawings.
Previous posters have been correct. Each Baptist church is totally independent, accepting no direction from a denominational hierarchy or anyone else. Baptist churches are self-governing with either the pastor and congregation together or the pastor and an elected council from within the congregation. Their only guiding document is the Bible and their own interpretations of the meaning of Scripture within a more or less generally accepted but not written context of evangelical beliefs. There are Baptist conferences — quite a few, in fact, which reflects that Baptists right from the beginning in colonial America have always had a very difficult time maintaining any semblance of a unified denomination with the exception of a few things such as co-support of foreign missions. The results of any conference meetings are advisory but not obligatory. That is precisely, in my opinion, why other Baptists cannot put the brakes on Westboro even when the will to do so is there. No mechanism to do it.
Are you telling us that Baptists are stubborn, Wolverine? Perhaps fiercely independent?
Too bad Westboro takes on the name Baptist. They are not worthy of the name and they certainly do not speak for God.
Yessiree, Moon, in my opinion Baptists are certainly stubborn about their independence. I recall a meeting of a Baptist conference in Detroit during the 1980’s when people almost came to fisticuffs in some of the arguments. If I remember correctly, the police were called in at one point. My own uncle was a very active lay leader in his Baptist church at that time. It so happened that his congregation was having a dispute about its own pastor, who was supported by my uncle. After seeing that fiasco in Detroit and being embarrassed by it all, he decided that the best thing for his own church would be for the pastor and himself to leave that church. What they did was go about 15-20 miles down the road and found a new Baptist church with the disputed paster of the former church as the pastor of the new church. No problem. They did not need the approbation of a bishop or a classis or a conference or anyone else for that move. They just founded the church and called it Baptist. That’s how the system of independence works.
This goes back a long ways. The Baptist church really grew during the “Great Awakening” in the late 18th century, going from circa 500 congregations to over 1100 by the end of the century. In some areas they formed associations, but somehow they could never manage to coalesce into a larger defined denomination. One of their greatest missionaries, Arthur Rice, who worked in India and Burma in the early 19th century, tried to lead a movement toward a general convention; but, even with his great reputation, the project failed. It never really has worked, so you will find Baptist conferences or associations here and there all over the country covering more than 50 million Baptists. Even Black Baptists have their own conferences. As I recall, however, none of these conferences, has much authority over individual churches except by mutual agreement on certain theological issues. They do cooperate on supporting foreign missions and certain religious publishing houses, and, as I remember it, support for some pastoral seminaries and colleges.
You ask how I can remember this stuff off the top of my head? My mother was a Baptist in the same church as that uncle until she married. I spent a lot of my youth in Baptist churches and have known Baptists all my life, both in the North and in the South. That’s why this Westboro thing really shocks me. I’ve never met a Baptist in my life who would act like that, no matter how much they differed with a societal trend they did not like. And lauding the death of our military men as part of their credo? Hardly. Many of the Baptists I knew were war veterans who had slugged it out in the Pacific and Europe and even piloted bombers over Germany and Japan. For them “Coming in On a Wing and a Prayer” was a true mantra. And their sons and grandsons (or granddaughters) are often still out there.
And about Westboro, if the pressure to remove the title Baptist ever became heavy enough, they would probably just rename the church to the Westboro Church of the Holy Ghost or something like that. They are just not the Baptists I have known all my life. Not at all. Baptists pray and Baptists vote. They don’t insult the families of slain military heroes. I just hope the family of that Marine realizes that.
And let me add one more thing, directed specifically at Westboro. I am a war veteran who spent a lifetime with real Baptists up close and personal, even though I am not a Baptist. If I am ever at a military funeral and you show up with that nonsense, you are going to have to deal with me and you won’t like it one bit. Semper Fi to the grieving family of that young Marine from an old swabbie who has always been downright fond of the US Marine Corps.