DESPICABLE - Father of dead soldier has to pay Westboro Baptist Church

[Procrastintor]

>Graugeist
I didn't know they were lawyers, maybe someone could get them on tax fraud or something? That'd be an interesting turn of events. Also, did you guys see the news story on them when they first started picketing things? They do "parodies" (NOT. FUNNY.) of songs that are very disrespectful to other religions/races, FOR CHILDREN. Not to mention they have a list of music that allegedly will make children "a homo-***" if they listen to them, and this list contains artists like Nirvana, Queen, and many more. (Also, they say if you find any of these artists' CDs you need to burn them in front of the child, and make sure they are close enough to "feel the heat of the fire") So if they really are lawyers they are thorough in keeping up their image as crazy.

 

[GrauGeist]

Here's a rundown on those assclowns...
Westboro Baptist Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Procrastintor]

Wow, what motivates this kind of a&holery?

 

[mikewint]

Grandpappy told my Pappy: "Son, there's two kinds of people in the word, the Righteous and the Unrighteous and it's always the Righteous that do the dividing"

 

[BlackSheepTwoOneFour]

Wow....

 

[evangilder]

The Westboro Baptist "Church" is just a hate group, plain and simple.

 

[Procrastintor]

I hate how they keep claiming first amendment whenever someone tries to sue them, it was not made to allow do*chery, it makes me want to beat them to death with the Bill of Rights. It would be both a slow AND ironic death.

 

[Aozora]

Why pay any attention to these moronic mongrels? People like this thrive on the hatred and anger of others because it confirms in their own sick minds that they are right: to quote from their site:

0 - nanoseconds of sleep that WBC members lose over your opinions and feeeeellllliiiiiings.

If they don't care, why the hell should anyone bother to give them extra publicity and/or attention? If they are too **** scared to face the real world and would rather stay comfy and cosy in their self-built insane asylum, spouting their delusional crap, let 'em - the true harm they do is to themselves; can you imagine what it must be like having so much hatred eating away at your soul and spirit every single second of your miserable life?

 

[evangilder]

Bingo! The less attention they get, the better. That is a big part of their schtick, attention whores.

 

[Njaco]

and picking and choosing who can use the Bill of Rights and who can't is a violation of the Bill of Rights. So, however nasty they are, they have a right to be. Now what we need to get rid of are male speedo beach wear!

 

[Readie]

We watched a TV programme here about the Westboro Bapist Church people.
Our countries share a tolerant 'freedom of speech' ethic but, these deliberately offensive idiots abuse the privilege.
I'm never sure whether its a good thing to show these programmes or not as I agree with Evan that the publicity / notoriety adds fuel to their fire.

 

[meatloaf109]

and picking and choosing who can use the Bill of Rights and who can't is a violation of the Bill of Rights. So, however nasty they are, they have a right to be. Now what we need to get rid of are male speedo beach wear!

Yep, as I stated earlier, it isn't popular speech that needs the protection, it is unpopular. Once we lose that, it's all over.

 

[mikewint]

I am 110% with Paul on that and I am usually very thick-skined about word/names but there is just something about these people, their signs, and who and what they choose to picket that sets me off. I ran into these "people" just once at a soldiers burial and lost it. I started a post about it which the mods wisely closed. I was in no state of mind to be civil. Even now... enough said

 

[Matt308]

Feel very sorry for their children. Brainwashed puppets everyone of them.

 

[GrauGeist]

From my point of view, the WBC has stepped beyond the well-worn shadow of the 1st ammendment the moment they insult others.

The 1st ammendment was authored to offer protection to groups and individuals who wished to speak out against the government without fear of reprisal. Not offer protection to douchebags who want to dance in the city streets naked, idiots who pretend to be decorated service members, corporate advertising agencies looking to fleece the public while lining thier pockets, mouth-breathing a-holes who create hateful cults and on and on and on...

Methinks this world is simply going to hell in a handcart much too quickly

 

[vikingBerserker]

....and picking up speed.

 

[Njaco]

Feel very sorry for their children. Brainwashed puppets everyone of them.

Not all the time. Remember Madalyn Murray O'Hair and her son Bill?

William J. Murray - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[mikewint]

While I don't believe as Madalyn did her suit was to prevent "CUMPULSORY" prayer and Bible reading in a "PUBLIC" school. I did then and do now still agree that she had every right to file that suit. Freedom cuts both ways and to compell anything limits that freedom.
So like I posted I am with Paul totally. Protecting the popular is easy. Yea, I know, I talk the talk but it is SO D*mn hard to always walk the walk

 

[Zipper730]

The guy who created the "church" was Fred Phelps (he's dead): From what I remember about him, he was actually a pretty intelligent individual, and was somewhat of an athlete (boxing), who managed to secure an appointment to West Point. In the year between graduating HS and entering West Point (he graduated a year early for one reason or another), he had developed an interest in religion and never attended.

Though his initial beliefs did not appear too fanatical by the standards of the time, they became aggressive fairly fast, and had actually found himself in brawls. He would be described as a Five-Point Calvinist, who believed that most people were pre-destined by God to go to hell, and only a small elect would be destined to see the gates of Heaven. Of course, his narcissistic personality, would lead him to naturally believe he was one of these "elects".

At some point (probably in the 1950's), he was either drunk or high out his face and gunned down a dog that crossed onto his property (his property was not clearly marked) if I recall. The people who lost their dog sued him, tow which he defended himself and won; he then counter-sued. Realizing the power of the legal-system, he started launching lawsuits against anybody he could . The fact that he gunned down somebody's dog also angered some people who went to his church, who left.

He would eventually go to law school and, while he took up many civil-rights cases, he would prove to be a crooked lawyer prone to litigious suits and extortion (sue somebody, then tell them if they gave him some money up front, he'd drop the charges -- he even did this to his clients -- well former clients at least). Since he was a narcissistic bastard, he saw everything as revolving around him, and made his kids go to law-school, overriding their own desires and dreams in life to "defend the church", which in this case meant "adding manpower to support his lawsuits".

His civil-rights work would actually get him an award by the NAACP, but the thing was -- he was a racist: He basically felt that white people were the servants of God, and black people were the servants of white people -- servants of the servant. He defended them as a result to an extent, and probably also to look good (he seemed to fool the NAACP): To keep the status quo, he would often sue, but settle out of court, rather than push to verdict -- policy only changes when a verdict is passed.

It probably wouldn't be surprising that he was an abusive bastard: He threw his wife down the stairs once, dislocating her shoulder, and prevented her from seeking medical care; he beat the shit out of his kids countless times: Girls and boys got the leather strap at first, then the boys would later get the mattock handle (a mattock is a pick-axe, the handle is about twice the density of a baseball bat) causing all sorts of bruising, probably some bleeding, and bone-chipping. In one case, child protective services were called in as one of his kids had exhibited signs of shock in school -- remember, this was around 1968 -- you had to damned near kill your kid to get that to happen!

In addition to having an unsavory personality to begin with, he had substance abuse issues. At the very least, he would have an alcohol addiction prior to going to law-school. After this point, his addiction would grow to include uppers (amphetamine and methamphetamine) and downers (barbituates). Though he would kick the drug habit, detoxifying himself, and also going on a starvation diet, he would go from being tall and pudgy to bony thin.

Now anything that seems good for Fred Phelps almost always has a way of going bad, and it did: He became a health-nut; then proceeded to force his kids along for the ride. Being naturally athletic, he found he was quite adept at running considerable distances, and would eventually be able to run marathon distances -- something he forced his kids to do also. At first, the local media was actually quite impressed, and then rather dismayed when they found out they were being forced to do this, as it's not really healthy for people that are pre-pubescent (his kids ranged from pre-pubescent to teenagers). He also had plenty of time for all this as he had been suspended for practicing law due to his legal practices.

He would be suspended several times actually, and eventually disbarred in the state of Kansas. This also kept him out of Federal courts for awhile as well, though when he came back, him and his kids were involved and, by God he started right where he left off. His actions might very well have gotten more aggressive rather than less, and him and his children were basically on the verge of being disbarred. He agreed to a deal that would see him surrender his license, and his kids would keep theirs. While they figured this would be good because plea-bargains generally deny one the right to appeal and theoretically stopped him from practicing law.

It didn't stop his sons and daughters as, once their suspensions ran out, they were capable of going back to practice law. At about this point in time, he started a crusade in a Park (Gage Park) which was supposedly an area where homosexuality was commonly practiced. The protests we mostly know him for started at around this point, but he wasn't picketing the funerals of soldiers, he would picket the funerals of people who were either known to be homosexuals and/or those who had died of HIV/AIDS. The purpose of this was largely out of a way to make money.

• He filmed all his protests so anything done could be used as ammunition in a lawsuit
• He exploited periods of time where people were highly emotional, such as funerals, and likely to be easier goaded into acts of aggression
• Said acts of aggression would be used to file lawsuits when possible

His sadistic impulses probably would be gratified by doing this too. In other words, he actually wanted people to fight him. Though most people would find this prospect undesirable, he wasn't a particularly anxious man, he liked to fight and was also quite willing to take a few bruises and broken bones if it would allow his kids to sock 'em with a massive lawsuit.

Eventually either after 9/11 or after the invasion of Iraq he switched his campaign from "God Hates Fags" to "God Hates America" and started protesting the funerals of military personnel who died in war. His claim that because the country as a whole tolerated homosexuality, we are all evil -- at least that's his pretext -- the real reason was the same as before. Get angry and emotional people to attack him; then use that to set-up a lawsuit. I'm frankly amazed by the fact that he never got shot by some of these people.

 

[fubar57]

Thread is over 5 years old and everyone knows who bat-sh!t crazy Fred was