Fighting Hate West Virginia Style. Westboro descending on Charleston, WV to inform the good people in the state capital that the Montcoal mining disaster happened because God hates …who even knows…oh ….they got a threatening note from West Virginia.
Charlestown fought back with class and style:
Westboro fanned out. (picket schedule)
They also went to VT to disrupt.
Westboro had mentioned deceased Morgan Harrington on their website. The VT student was murdered last fall after disappearing from a Metallica concert at UVA. Students organized and simply outnumbered qnd out performed Westboro in only the way United VT can do! Morgan’s parents were on hand to express their displeasure at having their daughter’s name dragged through the mud after her horrible fate.
According to WIBW:
BLACKSBURG, Va., (WIBW)_ Members of Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church turned up at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia on Friday morning.
They were there for a protest following the mine disaster which claimed the lives of at least 25 miners. Rescue teams continue to search for four more miners whose fate is still unknown.
The church claims the explosion was a result of a threatening memo that the church said was sent from West Virginia, the New York Times reported.
According to the Charleston Gazette, more than 300 counter-protesters were on hand for a counter demonstration against the six church members who showed up.
Nearby, larger numbers of church members fanned out across three locations in Blacksburg, Virginia nearly two years after the shootings at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people.
They too were met by counter protesters, including the father of Morgan Harrington, a Virginia Tech student who disappeared last October. Harrington said he couldn’t believe the Westboro Church was including Morgan’s memory in their protests.
What, if anything can be done to stop these vile people? They are using the very laws that make us tolerant Americans against us. Hopefully the Supreme Court case will castrate their efforts. I would contribute to any plan to legally put these disgusting wretches in their places. I think jail time sounds real good.
And when you thought they couldn’t go any lower, check out the parting shot. This sign was from the Sago mine disaster in 2006. However, they arrived at Montcoal, WV today with similar tactics. The poor people of Montcoal are trying to mourn their dead and recover their lost. They just don’t need this crap.
MH
This is truly unbelievable. How can it happen? Where are these people coming from? What are they trying to achieve? And to call themselves churchmembers!
“Thank God for dead miners”.
Can we put them in an institution the for mentally ill? Something, please!
Their message isn’t even coherent. They just come off as hateful lunatics.
We are free to criticize them and detest their message; but, unless they break laws in the act of demonstrating or advocate violence, I see nothing that we can do to quiet their voices without taking a serious and dangerous chink out of the armor protecting free speech for us all. Are these people worth endangering our own rights down the road? We saw here perhaps one of the most effective pro-active tools for opposing this thinking: counter-demonstrations conducted peacefully within the limits of the law. It apparently worked.
Yea it did. They got in their car and went somewhere else. Tech really had a wonderful counter demonstration. I saw it on TV on the 11 oclock news but couldnt find footage of it to post.
Probably neutalizing them is the best trick. Unfortunately, they seem to strike when people are at low ebb…not as quick on the defense. The Charleston people and the Tech students were just fabulous. They got advanced notice and planned accordingly. The power of peaceful demonstration. Perhaps Ghandi and MLK were on to something.
These people hopefully will also be financially put out of business. They cannot continue to make money off of those they prey on. They truly are carrion in the worst sense of the word.
I finally got around to looking at the Westboro “picket schedule.” Woof!!! These guys are truly equal opportunity haters.
They really are. Not even sure why.
Re the Phelps family – The BBC and Louis Theroux produced a documentary called “The Most Hated Family in America”. I saw it a couple years ago – probably got it from Netflix. It was an interesting watch in that you saw the different dynamics in the family. I believe Theroux was more than fair to them.
A couple of amateur theological thoughts here. Just as I thought, Westboro Baptist has no known connection to any Baptist “conference” anywhere. In fact, I just read that they had a protest at Jerry Falwell’s funeral. That is unbelievable. They call themselves totally independent, using the labels “Primitive Baptist” and “Calvinist.” They criticize many Protestant churches for telling “Arminian lies.” They believe that most other Christian churches practice nothing less than “devil worship.”
What that apparently means is that they take themselves philosophically back to the mid-17th century in America when the “Particular Baptists” believed in the Calvinist precept of “predestination” while their contemporary rivals, the “General Baptists”, believed in general atonement or “free will” as the road to personal salvation. The “Arminian lies” reference must come from that great debate in the Netherlands in the early 17th century in which the Calvinist theory of “predestination” won out over strong opposition from “free will” Calvinists led by Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius. Eventually “Arminian” came to mean heresy to orthodox Calvinists.
As early as 1800, general atonement or “free will” began to win out among Baptists. By 1900, Calvinism and “predestination” in the Baptist faith had been almost totally eclipsed by evangelical doctrines entailing “heart-religion” (having Christ always in one’s heart); “free will” salvation through Divine Grace; and the “conversion experience”, with almost no theological structure involved. That description fits every Baptist I have ever known; so it looks to me like Westboro is so far out there with regard to being “Baptist” that they aren’t even in that denominational ballpark. No wonder they are not part of any “Baptist” conference. The “Arminian” thing probably explains the protest at the Falwell funeral. These guys appear to me to be real loners out there who are locked into some kind of historical theology that has long disappeared from the Baptist faith per se. That they seem not to be part of a larger group would appear to be a plus; but I still wonder how they manage to scrape up $200,000-$250,000 per annum for all those protest trips.
These people are sick, and their “church” is equivalent to a Satanic cult, IMO. I would love to see the results of their Rorschach tests.
Censored, is it the same as Fall from Grace?
M-h, no, it’s different, but it came out around the same time.
OK, I admit I let my curiosity get the better of me, and I went to WBC’s website to see how bad it could possibly be.
Now I just want to take my poor MacBook and run it through the dishwasher. And pour bleach in my eyes. I almost thought it was a spoof, but it’s sadly real.
I just watched Fall from Grace(Netflix–I love instant gratification). I couldn’t find the one Censored recommended. I feel dirty all over. The rage I felt really wasn’t healthy. I cried when the motorcycles roared over top of them, the way people do when good vanquishes evil.
Very sick sitution. If we can’t stop this in our own country using our own laws, how can we stop the Taliban and other religious prosecution? How do we keep jihaddists out? We can’t even control our own idiots. They are terrorists. Psycholoigcal pain is just as real as physical pain.
Wolverine, I have no idea where they get the money. Donations?
Are there that many sickos in the world?
Found it, Censored.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-most-hated-family-in-america/
The Most Hated Family in America
It would be nice to know who funds these lunatics because then we could boycott (kind of like we did in South Africa). Cheers to the good people of West Virginia and VT students for standing up against them.
Totally agree, KimS.
Someone is funding them. Just like the terrorists….wonder who?
I would get them on child abuse.
Shirley Phelps Roper is a lawyer as are many members of the family. I believe that she stated in “The Most Hated…” that the group spends about $200,000 a year on travel expenses.I don’t know if most of their income comes from their family law firm.
Would you hire one of them as lawyer? I sure wouldn’t.
What can you say about these people, they are pathetic….beyond words, beyond reasonable comprehension, they are foul.
You almost don’t believe it because the behavior is so vile.
The kids have pretty nice clothes.
How can they miss so much school to go be foul?
Since Westboro is seeking to provoke violence so that they can sue, they are going about it the wrong way. One thing that is preventing any violence is the presence of the children.
What an interesting point. Thing what would have happened to them if those kids weren’t in the crowd. I think having those kids in the crowd is child abuse.
Did you see the kid get hit with whatever was thrown at him?
These people do not understand simple logic.
And yet I am beginning to suspect that Westboro may get some kind of reverse psychological boost from all our criticisms and scolding, as in: “See, the devil worshipers out there are angry and concerned about us. That means our message is getting to them enough to cause a reaction. Let us keep on pushing at the door!”
It would be one thing if this was just a communicated “message” on the blogs or through other usual means of mass communication. We could ignore it and thereby send it to Coventry, as the say. But these people have apparently devised a way to keep us from ignoring their message by slamming it in our faces and causing reaction. I would opine then that, while in the minds of almost all of us they may be wrong in their thinking, they are not actually stupid in their tactics. It’s the old joke from the mental asylum: “I may be crazy but I’m not stupid.” That means we’ve got to find some other way of ending this nonsense but doing so without adversely affecting the First Amendment. Right now, I must admit that I don’t have an answer. Perhaps we could start with some sort of journalistic investigation of the financing of these protests. Has anybody seen such an effort out there currently?
And let me remind one and all that the $200,000 plus appears to be just for the travel expenses for protests. Thiswould appear to be above and beyond the normal operating expenses for the church. I’ve known many a small Baptist congregation which would be singing Hosannas day and night at evey hour if they had a spare $200,000 in the church budget.