You’ve likely heard of Westboro Baptist Church. You may have had the displeasure of witnessing members protesting the funerals of soldiers, someone from the LGBT community, politicians, and even children who were victims of mass shootings. Despite the group’s name, it is hard to find another church or a Christian who supports this organization in any way. In fact, even though the group has the word “Baptist” in its name, it is not affiliated with any other Baptist church or the denomination at all. Members are well known for their hatefulness, often picketing funerals with hateful signs that condemn those the funeral is being held for.

Origins

Westboro Baptist Church is located in Topeka, Kansas. It used to be a branch of East Side Baptist Church, and in 1955 opened as a church plant after Fred Phelps was appointed pastor. Members didn’t start picketing until 1991. They started picketing Topeka’s Gage Park, because according to the group, there was a lot of homosexual activity that occurred there. It didn’t take long for their picketing to extend throughout the city of Topeka, and they started travelling nationwide in 1995. Since then, they have picketed thousands of funerals and other events and are pretty infamous throughout the whole United States. When Phelps passed away in 2014, there was no funeral for him. The family seems to think that holding a funeral for someone who has passed away is a way of worshipping him or her.

Lots of Picketing

The church members have picketed events in all 50 states. While funerals are what they receive the most attention for, they have picketed other events as well, especially locally throughout the state of Kansas:

• They picket several different churches every Sunday.
• They have picketed Kansas City Chiefs football games.
• They also travel nationally to picket music concerts.

The church members focus more on picketing than they do anything else. They picket seven days a week, an average of six different locations every day. They spend an estimated quarter of a million dollars on picketing annually.

Negative Attention

The church members receive and appear to thrive on negative attention. It seems to be the motivation to keep them going. In an old interview, Fred Phelps said that the negative attention they had begun receiving was just proof that what they were doing is righteous. They don’t seem to care that seemingly no one outside of their church supports them, and some have begun to wonder if they are demon possessed. After all, it has gotten to the point where they receive opposition at almost every funeral they attend, particularly ones that are highly publicized. They also don’t seem to receive support from any church in America. Of the religious institutions they picket, Jewish and Catholic ones are where they spend most of their time.

Blocked by Volunteers

Not surprisingly, members of the church picketed the funeral of the victims of the Orlando shooting. Since this was highly anticipated, hundreds of people peacefully blocked the protestors from the location of the funeral. The strength in numbers led to very few people being bothered or even noticing the protestors. This is starting to become a common theme at funerals such as these.

Something similar happened when the church announced it would picket the funerals of the children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting back in 2012. However, a group online organized a human wall in an attempt to shield the mourners from the protestors. Thanks to the overwhelming response, the church members left without protesting.

Despite the death of the head pastor in 2014 and the constant opposition the organization receives from just about everyone, members seem determined to keep pushing forward. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Westboro Baptist Church is going anywhere anytime soon.