Westboro planning to picket shooting vigil/Superpicket*MERGE

[valsa]

I just don't get what makes people like the WBC hate so much? I feel bad for them living every day controlled by their hate for someone else. It must be sad to be them.

I feel bad for people when things are not under their control. The adults of the WBC choose to live a life of hatred.

[kolga]

I just don't get what makes people like the WBC hate so much? I feel bad for them living every day controlled by their hate for someone else. It must be sad to be them.

The hate comes, as far as I can tell, directly from Fred. The allegations in the "Addicted to Hate" link above indicate that he is a rage-filled abusive volatile personality. In the videos I've seen of him, he always seems to be on the verge of exploding into violence even when the conversation seems calm - there's a seething energy in his way of speaking and his way of interacting with people. Of course, he's exploded into angry rants on videos, too.

If you grow up around someone who is unpredictably violent, aggressive, and filled with hate, and tells you from an early age that God himself is that way, it makes sense that that early brainwashing and Stockholm Syndrome would create what we see - a captive group of followers who hate as a defense mechanism so that their leader won't turn his hate and rage toward them.

[meow139]

Horrible people, just plain horrible. These people preach hate and only hate. If there is a god, and he's like that, I'm surely proud to be an atheist.

[Jezebel Duggar]

They might be, but they won't end it until Patriarch Fred is dead. The entire 'church' is mostly his family, and people who've married into the family (with a few random whackaloons who've joined up), and Fred the Fuhrer still holds iron-fisted control. The way the members talk in the interviews I've seen seems to fit with some of the information on Stockholm Syndrome.

The entire "church" will end once Fred's gone, but until then, they're all still drinking the kool-aid.

Imagine how many people with picket signs would show up for Fred's funeral?

[Mommy22alyns]

Imagine how many people with picket signs would show up for Fred's funeral?

Ooh, now THAT makes me smile.

[emmiedahl]

Shirley Phelps-Roper is an interesting person to look into. She had a child out of wedlock who was later adopted by her husband. Can you imagine coming home to Rev. Phelps with that kind of news? Now she seems to be running the church and the family almost singlehandedly. I really think there is a big self-hate issue with her. There *has* to be, right?

[Glass Cowcatcher]

Ooh, now THAT makes me smile.

How about no one shows up at all? Phelps dying and then no.one.caring. makes me smile more.

[StarrieEyedKat]

How about no one shows up at all? Phelps dying and then no.one.caring. makes me smile more.

I would MUCH rather see that. I'd hate to see so many people stoop to the WBC's level of hatred.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

I would MUCH rather see that. I'd hate to see so many people stoop to the WBC's level of hatred.

The death of Captain Vidal from Pan's Labyrinth comes to mind. :whistle: I'd like to see him get a "fuck you" of that magnitude.

[StarrieEyedKat]

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151097177940821&set=a.146572185820.146413.139321335820&type=3&theater

I can't see WBC in the pic, but it says they showed up...

[luckystone]

Yes, they are. I saw a photoshopped picture on Margie Phelps' Twitter feed. https://twitter.com/MargieJPhelps/status/227184401312788480/photo/1

I wasn't able to go, but my friends who were there posted photos. There were a couple thousand people who showed up.

WBC is more about threatening to picket these days than actually picketing.

What?! That's so crazy. it's obvious they only do this for attention and nothing else, but that's just weird and pointless.

The wall sounded good though, I read people were just going to turn backs to block them off but were forbidden from engaging with them or giving them any attention, sounded like a nice idea.

[kolga]

Here’s the thing about people showing up to protest Fred’s funeral – it just feeds into their belief system. In interviews, Nate Phelps (the son that escaped) states that the church/family were always taught that hate was the guiding principle of the world, and that the more the family/church were hated, the more they were on the right track. Any time anyone shows the WBC any sort of hatred, it simply confirms the teachings of Patriarch Fred that the WBC is the only true church.

The idea of no one showing up, no one reporting on it, no one caring, is my preference. The church/family doesn’t respond to hate – they revel in it.

And they don’t respond to love, either – in the past they’ve sneered at people who’ve given them signs of love and acceptance. An online friend of mine lives in Topeka and attends a church that is frequently picketed by WBC. One Sunday, this church’s fellowship brought out muffins and doughnuts and coffee and offered them to the WBC picketers. Everyone of the adults refused, and many of them asked questions like “are these the muffins with AIDS?†or “is this the faggot coffee?â€

Watching interviews with them makes me think of the years I worked with severely mentally ill people (please note: I am in NO WAY saying that people with mental illness are more likely to be intolerant or hateful; I am simply describing a delusional process). Their thought processes, as displayed in the videos I’ve seen, are very delusional – they see plots and conspiracies everywhere, and everything that occurs becomes a part of that delusional process. I've seen this ability to take seemingly unrelated information and weave it into a pre-existing delusion in the people with whom I've worked who've been diagnosed with severe psychotic disorders, and it's almost identical to what I see in the videos of the WBC. And it all comes from Fred.

As to reports that they showed up to the Aurora memorial and vigil – I can assure you that they did not. There were no sightings of them by either attendees or police.

[Patsy]

Shirley Phelps-Roper is an interesting person to look into. She had a child out of wedlock who was later adopted by her husband. Can you imagine coming home to Rev. Phelps with that kind of news? Now she seems to be running the church and the family almost singlehandedly. I really think there is a big self-hate issue with her. There *has* to be, right?

The son Jonathan conceived Jael out of wedlock, too. She's one of the more prominent third-gen Phelps.

[jenny_islander]

Ooh, now THAT makes me smile.

No hate words at all on the signs, either. Just "MY BROTHER IS MARRYING HIS BOYFRIEND IN TWO MONTHS," "PROUD TO HAVE SERVED IN KABUL," and chapter and verse numbers for Bible passages you can bet Phelps never uses, such as the place in Luke where Jesus explicitly refutes the theological teaching that bad things happening are punishment for sin (Luke 13:1-5).

[LaydNimue]

Didn't want to start a new thread for this, so...

300 Zombies upstage Westboro protest near Seattle

http://www.bill95.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104668&article=10304986#ixzz22ChDDJsF

Sometimes I really love people, check out the kool-aid protest sign :lol:

[LaydNimue]

Here's a larger pic

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/zombies-show-block-westboro-baptist-church-protestors-204613653.html