Goup Post 1: The Westboro Baptist Church

In honor of the Westboro Baptist Church’s announced visit to the Ohio State University I wanted to help everyone come to a better understanding of this group. The Westboro congregation travels around the country protesting at various events, which are likely to receive media coverage, in order to spread the word about how “god hates fags.” Events they have attended include military funerals, funerals of homosexual-hate violence victims, celebrity funerals, and Holocaust memorials. The congregation attempted to protest at the funeral of Christina Green, a 9 year-old victim of a shooting in Tucson, AZ, but was prevented by city officials. They also tried to hold demonstrations at a memorial in Joplin, Missouri for victims of the tornado on May 22, 2011, but were prevented by local residents. Many community organizations, such as the Patriot Guard Riders, were established to protect funerals from the Westboro Baptist Church. Even The Ku Klux Klan, a racial hate group has denounced the Westboro Baptist Church as “hatemongers”.

This is a very large amount of information to take in all at once, but the main thing is that this group is extremely devoted to expressing their belief that “god hates homosexuals” and wants to convey it to the public. However, their claims that disasters and deaths are caused by increasing acceptance of homosexuality, are unsound considering the myriad of activist groups that oppose them. The Ku Klux Klan, regarded as one of the most hateful organizations, described the church as “hatemongers” as well as “destructive to society.” Such an event would be similar to Josef Stalin telling a modern world leader that he is not treating his people with enough kindness. Needless to say, it should be cause for alarm if one of the largest hate groups identifies a church of god as harmful and malicious to the general public. On the other hand, the congregation is not completely bizarre. Their beliefs are primarily based on scripture in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 which respectively state, “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable” and “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” At face value this does seem to give credit to their dislike of homosexuals. However, the Westboro Baptist Church made a point of protesting at various Holocaust memorials and museums, denouncing people of Jewish faith and exclaiming “God hates Jews.” The hypocrisy is that the scripture from which their hatred was derived was written by Jews whom they hate. In fact, their Lord Jesus Crist was himself a member of the Jewish faith.

Furthermore, the Westboro Baptist church has claimed to be among the religious category of Primitive Baptists. Others who share this categorization though, do not consider themselves at all akin to the Westboro Baptist Church, and very much wish not to be associated with them or their beliefs. Ultimately, the Westboro Baptist Church has come to spite homosexuals simply because they do not understand them and view gays as sinners. They have no concrete purpose for hating people of different sexual orientations, but just do it out of fear and misunderstanding. The Bible may state specifically about gender relationships, but they defamed the same group credited with writing that book. Wholly ascribing to a book written by a group who is “hated by God” does by transference make these people hated by God themselves.