SGC News: Westboro Baptist Church's Greatest Hits!

We'll say this about the Westboro Baptist Church: they know how to think outside the box. The church - best known as the force behind the Web site God Hates Fags* and finding the real-life counterpart to the Crazy Cat Lady from the Simpsons (see above) - has been staging protests on the national stage since 1998, when they picketed Matthew Shepard's funeral.

While the Shepard protest was certainly tasteless and cruel, at least it was on message. You see, church founder Fred Phelps really hates gay people, and he's bet heavily that God shares that point of view. Whether you agree with Phelps or not, protesting the funeral of a man whose death became a cause célèbre for gay rights activists makes sense, even if it is in exceptionally poor taste.

Of course, there are lots of vocal, anti-gay propagandists. What makes the WBC so infamous is their decade of their surreal, nonsense protests. The following is a list of the church's most notorious protest causes, listed in order from the least to most nonsensical. With each entry, we will try to determine the church's thinking behind each protest.

(Editor's note: We should mention that Supergenius Central in no way endorses the WBC's message or its methods. This article is merely an attempt to make sense of the church's bizarre activities.)

1. Heath Ledger's funeral (January 2008)
Ledger's crime was starring in "Brokeback Mountain," a gay love story whose critical and commercial success must have drove Phelps crazy. In its press release announcing the protest, WBC made it very clear that the movie was the driving force behind the picket signs.

2. Lady Gaga

If you already believe that our civilization is declining and doomed, Lady Gaga is generally a good exhibit in the case. But the WBC protest probably has a lot more to do with Gaga thanking "the gays" at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.


3. Coretta Scott King's funeral (February 2006)

This is a tough one to explain. Maybe Phelps just objects to anyone who works on behalf of any oppressed class of people.

 4. Fred Rogers's funeral (May 2003)


We don't have any real answers here. Our best guess is that Phelps is among those who believed that Lady Elaine Fairchilde (from the Land of Make Believe) was a lesbian.

5. The Columbia Disaster (Nov. 4, 2004)

There's an important distinction here. The WBC wasn't protesting the disaster – they weren't blaming homosexuals within NASA for lax inspection and safety guidelines or anything. They actually supported the shuttle burning up in the atmosphere. "Fags Brought Down the Space Shuttle" screamed one sign, suggesting that Phelps believes that gravity is gay.

6. Soldiers' funerals

I doubt that even Al Qaeda in Iraq has signs singing the praises of improvised explosive devices,  but the WBC has them.

7. September 11th

Like the Columbia disaster, the WBC actually supported the terrorists who carried out the attacks, seeing the hijacked airliners as holy missiles from Heaven. More on 9/11 in a moment.

8. Hurricane Katrina

You know this, combined with the Coretta Scott King protest, suggests that Phelps thinks that maybe God ain't crazy about black folks either.

9. Jerry Falwell's funeral (May 2007)

Falwell appears last on our list because, if anything, he seems more like an ally of the WBC than an adversary. After all, Falwell did blame gays (among others) for the 9/11 attacks. That, apparently, is not good enough for the WBC. Says the church:

"Falwell warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White, and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc."


* I'm not going to link directly to the Westboro Web site, but it's not hard to find.