The Westboro Baptist Church hit a new low yesterday, when spokesperson Shirley Phelps-Roper announced the hate group’s plan to picket outside of Sandy Hook Elementary School because God or gay people or something. We’re not going to link to her tweets, because f*ck her, but we will commend the idea of a Reddit user, who yesterday wrote: “Westboro Baptist Church says they will be present at the funerals for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Let’s counter their protest by forming a silent blockade during the funeral processions!” Very practical, but Anonymous had a different idea, though with the same intentions:
On Sunday, [Anonymous] posted the names and addresses of members of the extremist Westboro Baptist Church after the hate group announced plans to picket Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were gunned down Friday.
Anonymous posted the following two messages on Twitter on the weekend: “Dear WBC Site Admin, you should really work on securing your personal infos. Er, too late…”
Earlier, it tweeted: “It’s so nice of #WBC to provide the internet with a list of their twitter handles..”
The list of the church members, which also includes email addresses and work numbers, can be easily accessed on sites like armywtfmoments.com. (Via)
Anonymous has occasionally gone over the line in the past, but in this case, they’ve got our full support. They also started a petition on the White House’s website to classify Westboro as a hate group.
Once you’re done (hopefully) helping to further demolish any power or influence Westboro might have, it’s worth reading writer Liza Long’s personal essay that she published on Friday called “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mom” that’s since gone viral. In it, she discusses having a “mentally ill” son and why we shouldn’t just be focused on changing our nation’s gun laws; it’s also “time to talk about mental illness.”
No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”
I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal. (Via)
Read the rest of it here.
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One thing that can be said about the WBC, they really know how to bring people together.
Protesting at the funerals of slain children.
Free speech is important, and I get that. But how these people have escaped the numerous beatings they have coming their way is astounding.
They deserve only the worst things in life.
They are the worst kind of attention whores in existence, preaching hate and complaining about their rights. Fuck’em.
Their whole thing is that if you die before the rapture, you are burning in Hell. I have no idea what they gain by promoting their message or if anyone has ever joined them following one of these protests, but they keep doing it. People should ignore them after taking away their tax exemption. Let them shrivel up and die like all the houseplants I own.
Many of them HAVE been assaulted, and they will sue, sue, sue. They make a ton of money off lawsuits and many of their prominent members have law degrees. They are so many terrible things and a church sure ain’t one of them.
These people are to the First Amendment what mass murderers are to the Second.
+1
^that
Feel like this should be on a billboard or on the screens in Time Square.
Well said, sir. Well said.
might be the smartest comment i’ve ever read on the internet
I fully support Anonymous this time. I cant even come up with a reason as to why those children’s funerals need protest? they were in the first grade
Why? What do they have against kids and teachers?
My understanding of their views isn’t that they have anything against kids or teachers per se. They just use these high profile funerals in order to spread their message that homosexuality is the cause of all evil in America because God is punishing us for having gays. Or something like that.
So yeah. They just generally use high profile funerals to spread whatever their stupid message is.
I believe Thornus is right. I’d say that makes them hellish death vultures, but that’s a slap in the face to hellish death vultures.
I signed the pettition.
WBC is good at hitting new lows.
Proud to say that I’m #98,801 to sign that petition. It’s the first internet petition I’ve ever signed.
Regrettably can’t sign the petition due to being Canadian. Sucks. Seriously, fuck WBC. I should remind myself when I get annoying with people for being dumb or disagreeing with me or something that ‘hey, at least they’re not another dumb fucking WBC shit mouth. Maybe we can get along.’
WBC is just a money scam. WBC holds these protest hoping to be physically attacked, so they can sue their attackers. Rinse and Repeat.
They are not a church, so much as an association of ambulance-chasing lawyers. Scum.
I have started a petition to have the zip code of Topeka, Ks. changed. You may or may not know that Topeka, Ks. is where the HATE group WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH, is located. Why is this significant? The zip code for Topeka, Ks. is 666–, (last two numbers change with the region in the city). I would like to change the zip code to 888–, which would represent loving kindness.
The number 666 symbolizes hatred, like the swastika has also come to symbolize hatred. The swastika was once a prominent religious symbol that now represents hatred. If I see someone using the number, 666, I think of hate. Forcing the Westboro Baptist Church write 888–, (loving kindness), in their address on all of their HATE MAIL, fliers, and group information, would be essentially like making them replace the hate with hearts and kittens.
This will not change in the way they think, but will give us an opportunity to voice our disdain for them in a peaceful, yet powerful way. To have this group know, that we did this simply to take the hate out of something as basic as their zip code, would be awesome. They would have to write this everyday, and be reminded that we will not tolerate their hatred. It is a very peaceful, yet potentially powerful change.
The petition is here:
[tinyurl.com]