Fallen Marine's father ordered to pay Westboro Baptist Church $116,000

I hear there's no more than 50 members.

Ep, you'd fit right in with these guys...

Uh, westboro would never be associated with a drunk.

I'd be surprised the government would go after any church for political activities. There are just too many politicians that make speeches from pulpits these days so any IRS investigation would have to be started only for the most egregious violations.

It would be like going after the Mormon's for being proponent's of CA Prop 8.

I believe Bill O'Reilly offered to pay the bill himself. I don't often agree with Bill but that was mighty generous of him.

And yet the argument is that Westboro isn't a "real" church.

Seems as if everyone wants to look the other way...except Bill O'Reilly.

It's as "real" as any other church- legally.

Morally and spiritual, it's another matter. As a Christian, I do not consider this as a "church" as I have no reason to believe Phelps or his brood are genuine Christians, despite any and all claims they make to the contrary.

So you'd have no objection if their books were audited, and I assume no other legitimate clergyman would, either.


The explanation I've seen for their deep pockets is that they're all lawyers and they earn their revenues that way. Now, if potential clients had the guts to shun them and look elsewhere...it's not as if there's a shortage of lawyers anywhere.

Their clients are themselves, you know.

They make their money by provoking people into assaulting them and the like, then they sue that person.

They are the epitome of a real-life troll.

They're all basically members of one family. If you look on Google Video you can find a documentary on them.

Well, dentists do like to inflict pain

It's a shame he was let go for surfing porn.

This.

They are self sustaining, but I feel sure they have a few bigots they represent.

I can't figure one thing out though. Do they actually believe this tripe they spew and consider themselves angels in battle or is it all a scam designed to instigate confrontation and exploit the human nature to want to throttle the living Jesus out of them?

I can't quite decide.

May Fred Phelps die in the arms of a male prostitute... who was servicing him.

Without a reacharound.

And no lube.

Well there you go. Instead of passing the hat so this guy can pay the court costs, can't we pass it to have the church burned to the ground and all its members killed? There aren't that many of them, and I'd think a lot of hit men are ex-military. They could get someone pro bono. I'd write a check for that in a heartbeat.

Has he evaded paying his taxes Dick? If he hasn't, than I'd say it is a safe bet to say he can't.

Maybe one of your socialist propaganda pieces has some information claiming he has evaded paying his taxes.

:crawl:

Audit the books? I dunno. But I would support stripping them of their tax exemption for their property and income. If they do get that $116,000 judgment, tax it out the wazoo.

The truth is that the Phelps cult is just a couple of shades removed from what Margaret describes as all the "legitimate, mainstream" Christian organizations out there. They're all in total agreement with the central Phelps message, that of homosexuality being a perversion & evil. Oh, they've learned to couch their condemnation in public-relations friendly media-speak (love the sinner, not the sin, etc), but behind closed doors, there's no difference. You really think the Southern Baptists are preaching a different message about America's evolving acceptance of open homosexuality? I can tell you from personal experience that they aren't.

No, the only real difference is that the members of the Phelps cult take it to an extreme that mainstream folks wouldn't dream of. The average fundie may talk big at church with his fundie buddies about the damn fags taking over America, but then go home and secretly watch Will & Grace if there's nothing else on. The Phelps cultists are out protesting funerals. And they don't just target military personnel or gays, as they recently did by threatening to protest the funeral of a little girl killed in an auto accident here in Oklahoma because of some imagined grievance they had with.....well, something about the state government. Who knows?

The reason you haven't heard Joel Osteen or any of the other mega-church TV preachers condemn Phelps? Because they know at least half their congregation agrees with Phelps message, if not his practices. As for small-town churches, forget it. You'll never hear anyone speak against them, because the prejudice is even stronger in those contexts.

Preacher: "what the Phelps clan is doing is evil and dispicable"
Joe Fundie: "wait, you not sayin' you support the fags, are you?"

You can fill in the rest.

One wonders if the protests will end once Phelps croaks. I doubt it. I suspect the only way for the protests to end is for someone to finally kill them. I personally am not worried about the idea of them becoming martyrs, something which they'd be only in the deep recesses of their own diseased minds.

Yeah, I pretty much am waiting for the day when I wake up the headline that some of the Phelps cult have been shot dead. I imagine I'll have a smile on my face that day.

Did people a few years ago actually believe that there was a spaceship inside a comet, and that the way to get to it was to castrate themselves and drink poison?

Don't underestimate the ability of people to delude themselves.

WTF? Do you mean to tell me there isn't a spaceship inside a comet ready to wisk me away to paraside? Why the hell do I even bother to pay my taxes anymore?

Osteen won't condemn anything or anyone. He's not a preacher. He's a motivational speaker. But he won't condemn Phelps because someone would accuse him of being mean-spirited and judgmental and to Osteen, that's a fate worse than death.

In that case, some of the big name lawyers who thrive on high-profile cases could offer to take any case filed against them pro bono and keep 'em running from courtroom to courtroom until they exhaust themselves.

As others have suggested, there are a lot of similarities with other cults like Heaven's Gate and Jonestown. The fact that it's mostly family members makes it possible to keep a tight rein on the group mind with the same kind of techniques. The only difference I can see is that their goal doesn't seem to be self-destruction...yet.

What information is available about Fred Phelps says that his mother died when he was five, and he was passed around to relatives until his father remarried, and he lived with his father and stepmother until he was 16, then went out on his own.

That in itself suggests a lot, but the fact that several of his children have turned on him fills in the blanks even more:

The article's from 2006, but it doesn't seem as if anything's changed in the interim.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_20060723/ai_n16666550/

This.
I thought hate speech is supposed to be a crime.

Bullshit.

Stop trying to out-clown Diacanu.

You're way out of practice.

The Greater Baptist Church should excommunicate Phelps & his tasteless congregation.

Baptist don't work like that, unless you are in the Southern Baptist Convention or something. The majority of Baptist churches are independent and are under no denominational control. But other Baptist churches can "shun" Westboro and refuse to co-operate with it.