Hi everyone. My name is Libby Preslock and I am a second year student at Ohio State. I’m majoring in operational management, and I’m getting a minor in finance. In today’s episode we’ll be diving into the topic of cults the one cult we are really going to dive into is the Westboro Baptist Church. The reason the Westboro Baptist Church is a great topic to dive into is due to their racist and homophobic background. So let’s start by giving a little background on what even is the Westboro Baptist Church, and what do they even stand for? Well, the Westboro Baptist Church is an American hyper capitalist hate group. It is known for engaging in inflammatory homophobic, and anti American pickets, as well as hate speech against atheist, Jews, Muslims, transgender people, and numerous Christian denominations. Now that we’ve given some backstory, we did ask our listeners on our website about a week ago and let them know that we are going to be talking on this topic, we ask people to either write or call in for advice about particular circumstances they had seen regarding the Westboro Baptist Church or cults in general. The first question we have was sent in by Christie. Christie asked, Why does the Westboro Baptist Church pickit army funerals? And how is this a form of injustice? Well, Christy, that’s a great question and a great place to start off when it comes to investigating the Westboro Baptist Church. One of the most interesting things the Westboro Baptist Church does is attend the funerals of Army soldiers and pickit them the main reason members of the church attend funerals is to conduct anti gay protests at the military funerals, their organization pickets, celebrity funerals and public events as well as for the churches made the statement, the soldiers are dying for the homosexual and other sins of America. The main reason the church pickets these funerals is to promote their anti homosexuality agenda. So the idea of the Westboro Baptist Church picketing army funerals is the first example of injustice, the injustice of homophobia. The Westboro Baptist Church also targets transphobic members, they express many transphobic messages in their protest. When members of the church decide to go protest, they come out with signs. Most of these signs always read messages of hate transphobia homophobia or other sources of injustices. Some examples of the signs that they hold include thank God for dead soldiers, and the most shocking of them all. God hates F*gs. Next, we will be moving on to another question asked by another listener. Our next listener, Chris asked, How does the Westboro Baptist Church target those of Jewish heritage? This is another great question. The Westboro Baptist Church has many forms of anti semitism that they have had and believed in since their founding time. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church believe their church is the one and only quote unquote, right church for those. They don’t believe in other churches or other religions, and believe people that don’t worship what they believe, are going to be sent to hell. To more specifically answer Chris’s question on why the Jewish community is so heavily targeted by the Westboro Baptist Church, we can look into some of the quotes that members of the church have made against them. The first quote against the Jewish community comes from margie Phelps, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, she makes the claim that Jews were once one of the loudest voices in favor of homosexuality and abortion, and that, quote unquote Jews claim to be God’s chosen people. Another member of the Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps also makes many harsh statements against the Jewish community.
In one example, in 1996, Phelps began a campaign called Topeka Baptist Holocaust. He was attempting to draw attention to attacks perpetrating against Westboro Baptist Church pickers, and saying that they were not random, but organized attacks orchestrated by Jews and homosexuals. Fred Phelps has also made statements on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He makes the claim that American taxpayers are financing this unholy monument to Jewish mendacity and greed into filthy F*g lust. by answering Chris’s question and given examples on how the Jewish heritage and community is targeted by the Westboro Baptist Church, we now look at our second form of injustice, anti semitism. So far in this podcast, we now have taken a look into two forms of injustices the cult Westboro Baptist Church stands for and make claims for. We have looked into their claims against anti homosexuality and anti semitism. We now will be taking an intermission between talking about the injustices the Westboro Baptist Church stands for, we will be taking a look into a way that people decided to take a stand against the Westboro Baptist Church in a way that’s quite comical and funny. The way that people did this is a house across from the Westboro Baptist Church was painted with the Gay Pride rainbow colors. The man who orchestrated this Aaron Jackson says he took inspiration from a nine year old kid who stood up to the Westboro Baptist Church protesters painting the house in the colors of the Gay Pride rainbow. When they are done, they claim they’re going to be adding a huge rainbow flag in front of the house to add a little bit of extra ombiance. Someone from the Westboro Baptist Church made a quote about what they thought about the house, it was said that the reported representative of the Westboro Baptist Church said she loved the paint job because they kept the eyes of the earth on the church’s message. The message again, she means is the injustice of homophobia. A native bystander to the house a Midwesterner also made the quote that I’m proud of the welcome Jackson’s received. After all, he explained why he’s doing this. He wants to show where there’s hate, and there also can be love. This house is a great example of ways people are taking a stand against the churches injustices and it’s hatred towards others.
We now are going to go back to listening and answering questions that people have sent in on the topic of the Westboro Baptist Church. The next question was sent in by listener Sara. Sara asked the question of how the Westboro Baptist Church has targeted and hurt people of the Islamic culture. This is another great question. As this opens up the third installment of the injustices the Westboro Baptist Church has demonstrated. We can look into how this takes place as we look into comments made by jael Phillips, another member of the Westboro Baptist Church. In an interview in 2011, she and other members of the Westboro Baptist Church tauntingly and publicly burned a copy of the Quarn while being scolded by a Muslim man. These members of the Westboro Baptist Church made the quote that the Quarn was an atrocious piece of trash, and that they were giving it the proper respect that it deserved by doing so. Not only did these members make quotes against the Muslim community, they also decided to pickit the funeral of a Muslim mans wife the following week. jael Phillips was present for this and said the wife’s death was partly due to her Muslim husband having spoken out against the Westboro Baptist Church. This therefore meant that he she rejecting God in bringing his righteous judgment down upon him. She also commented that all those angry little Muslims can just shut their mouths. These examples all lead us into the third installment of the injustices is the Westboro Baptist Church preaches. We have now looked at the Westboro Baptist Church’s stance on the anti homosexuality, anti semitism. And now a look at Islamophobia. Islamophobia can be described as a dislike of or the prejudice against Muslim or Islams especially as a political force. In this case, we see a huge prejudice taking fold, as members of the church make derogatory comments as well as picket funerals, targeting and hurting the Muslim culture. The last question is asked by listener Jacqueline, Jacqueline asked the question to describe the pickets that the Westboro Baptist Church puts on. I decided to save this question for last as this encompasses all three of the injustices we talked about. And now we have a better understanding of what the Westboro church preaches. When they go out to do these pickets. The Westboro Baptist Church carries out daily picketing in Topeka, Kansas and also travels nationally to picket funerals of gay victims, gay bashing, and as well as those people who have died from complications related to AIDS. This example of picketing goes back to the Westboro Baptist Church’s stance on homophobia. Some of the most horrifying events that the Westboro Baptist churches picketed are for funerals of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, and the West nickel mines school shooting. The Westboro Baptist Church is able to keep its protests legal in nature. They are non violent, and they are able to acquire the proper permits needed to continue picketing. Although the Westboro Baptist Church has been able to tiptoe around the idea of getting in trouble through law enforcement, they recently have run into some trouble. This happened when they started protesting military funerals. We talked about this a couple minutes ago, again, talking about the injustice of homophobia. The public acts of protesting the military funerals cast a political spotlight on the group and gave its vast attention even though they are very small size. Another weird thing the Westboro Baptist Church does along with picketing is release parody songs. You actually can look these up on YouTube if you’re interested in what they say. The Westboro Baptist Church members, Steve drain claims that they make their songs and the choices of their songs to revolve around mostly popularity. They want it to encompass main stream stuff and the whole idea of doing the parodies is to preach. to round up this question. The Westboro Baptist Church Mainly uses picketing to get the churches main points across. Although these points are only agreed with by churches, members, they still want others to see and see the hatred that they spew. to round out this podcast, we were able to see the injustices that cult mentality can bring, mainly the Westboro Baptist Church in its three main examples of injustices. We also dived into the idea of what their pickets stood for, and the horrible things that they say during their pickets. I really appreciate everyone’s time coming to this talk, and I thank everyone who asked questions through our website, thank you so much, and I really hope to see you guys in our next podcast.
Works Cited:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church#Anti-homosexuality
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/03/19/174737257/house-across-westboro-baptist-is-painted-with-gay-pride-rainbow
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/03/21/rainbow-house-fights-westboro-baptist-with-love/