This document is an archived copy of an older ADL report and may not reflect the most current facts or developments related to its subject matter.
Introduction
The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is a small virulently homophobic, anti-Semitic hate group that regularly stages protests around the country, often several times a week. The group pickets institutions and individuals they think suppor t homosexuality or otherwise subvert what they believe is God’s law.
Incorporated in 1967 as a not-for-profit organization, WBC considers itself an “Old School (or Primitive)” Baptist Church. WBC’s leader is Fred Phelps and several of his children and doze ns of his grandchildren appear to constitute the majority of the group’s members. WBC has no official affiliation with mainstream Baptist organizations.
While WBC members have protested at Jewish institutions over the years, such institutions were not a m ajor focus for the group until April 2009. Since then, WBC has targeted dozens of Jewish institutions around the country, from Israeli consulates to synagogues to Jewish community centers, distributing anti-Semitic fliers to announce planned protests at these sites. WBC has also been sending volumes (in some cases dozens over the course of a week) of faxes and emails with anti-Semitic and anti - gay messages to various Jewish institutions and individuals.
In addition, in April 2010, the group began mailing a virulently anti - Semitic DVD to Jewish organizations and leaders. The DVD also attacks President Obama, describing him as the anti-Christ, and is filled with anti-gay and anti-Catholic vitriol.
Other WBC targets include schools the group deems to be accep ting of homosexuality; Catholic, Lutheran, and other Christian denominations that WBC feels are heretical; and funerals for people murdered or killed in accidents like plane crashes and for American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, a tactic the gro up started in 2005. Though the group's specific focus may shift over time, they believe that nearly all Americans and American institutions are “sinful,” so nearly any individual or organization can be targeted.
In fact, WBC members say that “God’s hatred is one of His holy attributes” and that their picketing is a form of preaching to a “doomed” country unable to hear their message in any other way.
Additionally, the group has tried to stage protests in foreign countries. In February 2009, the WBC announce d plans to travel to Great Britain to protest the staging at a school there of “The Laramie Project,” a play about the vicious murder of a young gay man, Matthew Shepard, in 1998. (British government officials barred the group from entering the country.) The group made it to Canada in August 2008, where they picketed the funeral of a young man who was the victim of a brutal murder on a Greyhound bus, which was national news in that country. Authorities there reportedly tried to prevent the group from entering their country, but the WBC claims it was able to evade Canadian border patrol agents to stage the protest.
A Publicity-Hungry Group
The primary goal of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), led by Fred Phelps, appears to be garnering publicity for itself and its message. For this reason, the group directs its efforts at events that have attracted heavy news coverage, like the deaths of soldiers killed in wars or the victims of well-publicized accidents, or at venues, such as high schools, which are likely to generate large counter-protests and community outrage. Many of its protests are held in response to events that have generated at least local media coverage, as in an April 2009 protest of the staging of the musical “Rent” at a high school in Newport Beach, California, which had been the subject of local controversy. The group also announces plans to picket at locations abroad (many in locations WBC is not likely to b e to travel to, such as Sri Lanka, or cannot travel to, such as Great Britain, where the government has formally banned members of the group from entering) in the hopes of generating foreign press coverage.
To create further attention, the group produces music videos with titles like “God Hates the World” or “Santa Claus Will Take You to Hell” and maintains Web sites with names like GodHatesAmerica and GodHatesFags, all designed to inflame the passions of viewers. One of these Web sites includes a “media ro om,” with links to “broadcast quality resolution video files of our picketing ministry.”
In a telling comment, after Shirley Phelps-Roper, a leader of the WBC, had screened a documentary about the group in her home prior to its debut on Showtime in December 2007, she said, “The content was good. Anytime we get the word out there that we are a doomed country - a doomed generation it's a good thing.” Every mention of WBC in the media is considered a victory by the group.
Pickets Inspire Legislation and Legal Action
Since 2005, at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) members carry placards with sayings like “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “Thank God for IEDs [improvised explosive devices]” while shouting epithets at mourners.
The group quickly gained national media attention for the practice and, to date, 41 states and the federal government have enacted legislation that attempts to limit it. The constitutionality of these laws, on both freedom of speech and freedom of religion grounds, has been challenged in four states, with mixed results. In March 2007, a federal court in Ohio upheld, with slight revisions, that state’s anti-funeral picketing law.
However, in December of that year WBC won a preliminary injunction prohibiting the state of Missouri from enforcing its law. In June 2009, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear Missouri’s appeal of the preliminary injunction.
In addition, in October 2007, a federal jury in Baltimore, Maryland, found members of the WBC guilty of violating a right to privacy and intentionally inflicting emotional distress against the family of Matthew Snyder, a Marine who was killed in Iraq in 2006. Snyder’s father, Albert, was the first individual to attempt such a lawsuit against the group and this was the first time the church had been held liable for its military funeral protests.
The jury initially ordered the WBC to pay nearly $11 million in damages, a sum members claimed was many times more than WBC’s net assets. In February 2008, a federal judge in Baltimore reduced the amount of the damages to $5 million, finding that the original punitive damages were excessive. In September 2009, a federal appeals court threw out the verdict entirely. It ruled that even though the group held up “utterly distasteful” signs at Snyder’s funeral, the signs commented on issues of “public concern” and were therefore constitutionally protected speech. In early October 2010, the Supreme Court heard Snyder’s appeal to determine whether the appeals court erred in overturning the jury’s award of damages.
On March 2, 2011 the Supreme Court ruled 8 - 1 in favor of the WBC, stressing that the group was protected by the First Amendment and its free speech rights to debate public issues. The Court also noted that the WBC had obeyed directions from local officials, maintained a distance from the church where the Snyder funeral was held, and did not disrupt the funeral service.
Another case revolved around charges for flag desecration made against Shirley Phelps-Roper in Nebraska in June 2007. As is her custom, she had worn an American flag so that it trailed on the ground and also allowed her 10-year-old son to stand on an American flag while protesting at a soldier’s funeral in the state. In February 2009, a Nebraska state judge denied her challenge to the constitutionality of the flag desecration law. At the end of December 2009, Phelps-Roper filed a federal lawsuit against more than a dozen Nebraska state officials, including the governor, attorney general, and judg es involved in the ongoing flag desecration case. Her lawsuit challenges a number of state and city laws, among them those that deal with flag desecration and funeral pickets. Phelps-Roper alleges that these laws infringed upon her right to free speech and are being applied in a discriminatory fashion.
In July 2010, Megan Phelps-Roper, Shirley’s daughter, filed a federal lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of Nebraska’s flag desecration law, saying that the law infringed on her freedom of speech. Two months later, in September, a federal judge overturned the Nebraska law. The judge said that the law could not be applied if Megan Phelps-Roper and other members of the WBC “otherwise acted peacefully while desecrating the American or Nebraska flag during their religiously motivated protests.” In addition, the judge ordered Nebraska state officials to pay $8,000 in attorney’s fees to Megan Phelps-Roper.
A History of Anti-Gay Hatred
Before it began picketing the funerals of soldiers, the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) was best known for picketing the funerals of gay people or those they perceived to be gay. In 1998, WBC members set off an angry reaction nationwide when they showed up at the funeral of gay murder victim Matthew Shepard and held up signs saying “No Fags in Heaven” and “God Hates Fags.” According to a WBC Web site, they claim to have staged over 40,000 total protests over the years in more than 600 cities across the United States and internationally in Canada, Jordan, and Iraq since 1991.
The WBC continues to target productions of “The Laramie Project,” a play about Shepard that was subsequently turned into a movie, and to denigrate him and his memory. For example, the group’s announcement in October 2009 of pickets of several California productions of the play included the quote, “Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for eleven years with eternity left to go on his sentence... All else about Matt is trivial and irrelevant.” These pickets are often staged at high schools that perform the play, and regularly generate significant counterprotests.
While the WBC has picketed the gay community at hundreds of events nationwide, most of the individuals the church has targeted are not homosexual.
Fred Phelps Disbarred
Trained as a lawyer, Fred Phelps, the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, was disbarred in 1979 by the Kansas Supreme Court, which asserted that he had “little regard for the ethics of his profession.” The formal complaint against Phelps charged that he misrepresented the truth in a motion for a new trial in a case he had brought, and that he held the defendant in the case up to “unnecessary public ridicule for which there is no basis in fact.” Following his disbarment from Kansas State courts, Phelps continued to practice law in Federal courts. In 1985, nine Federal court judges filed a disciplinary complaint charging him and six of his family members, all attorneys, with making false accusations against them. The Phelps family fought the complaint but lost and, in 1989, Fred Phelps agreed to not practice law in Federal court in exchange for the Federal judges allowing the other members of his family to continue practicing in Federal court.
In Their Own Words: On Jews
“The only true Jews are Christians. The rest of the people who claim to be Jews aren't, and they are nothing more than typical, impenitent sinners, who have no Lamb. As evidence of their apostacy [sic], the vast majority of Jews support fags. Of course, there are Jews who still believe Gods l aw, but most of them have even departed from that.” -- FAQ, WBC's Godhatesfags.com Web site
“JEWS KILLED JESUS! Yes, the Jews killed the Lord Jesus...Now they're carrying water for the fags; that's what they do best: sin in God's face every day, with unprec edented and disproportionate amounts of sodomy, fornication, adultery, abortion and idolatry! God hates these dark - hearted rebellious disobedient Jews.” -- WBC n ews release, April 23, 2009
“15 years ago, in a conspiracy between members of the police, medi a, city government, and a crooked lawyer/judge/strip joint owner/bloody jew, america sought to silence WBC by beating her members bloody on the sidewalks outside the Vintage Restaurant in Topeka. Every day since (not most every day, not every day except ba d weather, not most days, but EVERY DAY), WBC has stood on those same sidewalks to remind you of your crimes and hatred, and that God will avenge our blood, which cries to him from that ground (Gen 4:10).” -- Post to WBC's Godhatesamerica.com Web site, March 26, 2008
“Gen. [Wesley] Clark opposed fags & dykes in the military BUT when he decided to run for President on the Democratic ticket he groveled like a mangy dog to the FagiNazis running the Democratic Party, and promised to lift the ban on gays in the military. His Christ-rejecting, God-hating Jew blood bubbled to the surface. Yes, like his boss [John] Kerry, Clark is a Jew. That these two turds are Jews would not matter except when they ask for supreme political power & spit in the Face of God, pushing for same-sex marriage, threatening to bring down God's wrath on us as on Sodom then some inquiries are in order. Beware! Jews killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men; for bidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always; for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. Apostate fags & Jews certain to bring God's wrath.” -- WBC news release, March 2, 2004
“Worldwide Jewry and worldwide Fagery [sic] appear to have the same problem: They both want to criminalize Gospel preaching under misleading labels. Jews label Gospel preaching as Anti - Semitism; Fags label Gospel preaching as ‘Hate Crimes.’ Both groups -- Fags and Jews -- are doomed!...WBC buys trees for Israel. WBC prays for the peace of Jerusalem. But isn't there a logical correlation between Jewish tyranny & Anti-Semitism?” -- WBC news release, June 10, 1997
“Whatever righteous cause the Jewish victims of the 1930s - 40s Nazi Holocaust had, (probably miniscule, compared to the Jewish Holocausts against Middle Passage Blacks, African Americans and Christians -- including the bloody persecution of Westboro Baptist Church by Topeka Jews in the 1990s), has been drowned in sodomite semen. American taxpayers are financing this unholy monument to Jewish mendacity and greed and to filthy fag lust...Homosexuals and Jews dominated Nazi Germany...just as they now dominate this doomed U.S.A...The Jews now wander the earth despised, smitten with moral a nd spiritual blindness by a divine judicial stroke...And god has smitten Jews with a certain unique madness, whereby they are an astonishment of heart, a proverb, and a byword (the butt of jokes and ridicule) among all peoples whither the Lord has driven and scattered them...Jews, thus perverted, out of all proportion to their numbers energize the militant sodomite agenda...The American Jews are the real Nazis (misusers and abusers of governmental power) who hate God and the rule of law.” -- WBC news release, December 26, 1996
“The Jew lawyers and judges of Temple Beth Sholom bastardize and prostitute the legal system to maliciously prosecute and persecute innocent Westboro Baptists, just as their Jewish ancestors manipulated the Roman legal system to torture and crucify the Lord Jesus Christ and persecute His disciples. The Jew psychiatrists and other shyster brain - washers of Temple Beth Sholom write columns and conduct seminars to vilify and slander innocent Westboro Baptists, just as their scribes, Rabbis, Pharisees and Sadducees did to the Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples in Bible days...The Jews of Temple Beth Sholom are sinful, greedy, Hell-bound, money-grubbing sodomites; and they have dedicated their synagogue to be a gay and lesbian propaganda mill and recruiting depot, soliciting young people to sodomy.” -- WBC news release, September 7, 1996
“Fag Jew Nazis are worse than ordinary Nazis. They've had more experience. Jews stirred up the Romans to butcher 6 million Christians in the catacombs in the 1st century. The First Holocaust was a Jewish Holocaust against Christians. The latest Holocaust is by Topeka Jews against WBC...” -- WBC flier, April 19, 1996
“As Hitler controlled the courts, prosecutors and police (Gestapo) in persecuting German Jews, so do Topeka Jews today in persecuting Baptists. As first century Jews stirred up the Roman tyrants in persecuting the primitive church, so do Topeka Jews today stir up Kansas tyrants in persecuting Westboro Baptists. They whine about the Nazi Holocaust, while they perpetrate the Topeka Holocaust.” -- WBC flier, March 23, 1996
In Their Own Words: On Gays
“WBC engages in daily peaceful sidewalk demonstrations opposing the homosexual lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth. We display large, colorful signs containing Bible words and sentiments, including: GOD HATES FAGS, FAGS HATE GOD, AIDS CURES FAGS, THANK GOD FOR AIDS, FAGS BURN IN HELL, NO NOT MOCKED, FAGS ARE NATURE FREAKS, GOD GAVE FAGS UP, NO SPECIAL LAWS FOR FAGS, etc...WBC has conducted some 20,000 such demonstrations during the last nine years at homosexual parades and other events (including funerals of impenitent sodomites, like Matthew Shepard). WBC teams have picketed major fag parades in San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., Miami, San Diego, Dallas, Orlando, Kansas City, etc. The unique picketing ministry of Westboro Baptist Church has received national attention, and WBC believes this gospel message to be America's last hope.” -- FAQ, WBC Godhatesfags.com Web site
“The only true Nazis in this world are fags. They want to force you by law to support their filth, and they want to shut you up by law when they hate what you say. They would be perfectly happy to make it a crime to preach that ‘God hates fags’ under the guise of ‘hate speech legislation.’” -- FAQ, WBC Godhatesfags.com Web site
“WBC picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, to inject a little truth and sanity into the irrational orgy of lies consuming this world. WBC does not support the murder of Matthew Shepard...However, the truth about Matthew Shepard needs to be known. He lived a Satanic lifestyle. He got himself killed trolling for anonymous homosexual sex in a bar at midnight. Unless he repented in the final hours of his life, he is in hell. He will be in hell for all eternity, ‘where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.’ Mark 9:44. For each day that passes, he has only eternity to look forward to. All the candlelight vigils, all the tributes, all the acts of Congress, all the rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States, will not shorten his sentence by so much as one day. And all the riches of the world will not buy him one drop of water to cool his tongue.” -- "Perpetual Gospel Memorial to Matthew Shepard," WBC Godhatesfags.com Web site
“It's NOT OK to be gay. It will damn the soul, destroy the life, and doom any nation that tolerates such ev il. God Hates Fags is a profound theological statement, which America needs more than it needs oxygen or bread.” -- "WBC to picket UC (Tar Heels) graduation and Binkley Baptist Ch urch," WBC news release, May 3, 1999
“Filthy sodomites crave legitimacy as dogs eating their own vomit & sows wallowing in their own feces crave unconditional love.” -- "Week 344 of the Great Gage Park Decency Drive," WBC n ews release, January 15, 1998
“All gays & lesbians are liars and murderers at heart, like their father, Sata n.” -- "____________. A black dyke! An abomination! Clinton & the Senate made her a U.S. Judge!" WBC news release, November 24, 1996
In Their Own Words: On Blacks
“Me ______________. Me lots smarter now. Me be Deputy Mayor...This crowd could dumb down the Western Hemisphere.” -- Text surrounding a drawing of a gorilla, "Wagnon's 'Friendlier Topeka,'" WBC flier, June 13, 1997. The named individual is an African-American city council member in Topeka, Kansas
“Forget the American Bald Eagle. Since June 23, 1994, the only fitting emblem for the Great Seal of the United States Judiciary is this beast...Just call me: ‘Yo Honuh’!!!... Here Come De Judge!!!” -- Text surrounding a racist caricature of an African - American female judge, “The Federal Judiciary: A Menagerie of Demonic, Libidinous, unclean Beasts: A Curse from God Upon an Apostate Nation,” WBC flier, November 28, 1996
“Anybody babbling about 'multicultural affairs' and 'celebrating diversity' is a propagandist for the militant sodomite agenda...Westboro Baptists will picket this black obfuscator, in religious protest and warning. Being black won't get you to Heaven. But promoting fags will take you to Hell.” -- "WBC Will Picket ____________ _______, Ph.D. She's a Multicultural, Diversity-Celebrating Blabbermouth," WBC news release, November 13, 1996
“Black Female Dyke ___________ is a child of the Devil, peddling her satanic father's fag lies...She's dangerous because she plays the race card, the female card, & the poor-little-broken-home orphan card like a fiddle to gullible fools who give her money.” -- “WBC to Picket Pervert ________, & Her Devil's Angels,” WBC news release, May 20, 1996
“Meet _______________, black criminal...this black goon heads for 15-year-old Sharon Phelps...to beat her and hospitalize her.” -- “Boycott the Vintage...Black Bullies Beat White Kids and Women,” WBC flier, March 31, 1996
“On Feb. 1 this sorry smear of Hamitic Sludge who sold his black soul to the Courthouse Whore ordered a fellow black murderer...released without bond & without an AIDS test!” -- “Black Slime ____,” WBC flier, February 6, 1995
“The recent race riots in New York over the senseless killing of young Yusef Hawkins, and the waves of Black students clashing with police in Virginia Beach, remind us that racism is not quite dead in America the beautiful. But most of us are sick and tired of self-flagellation. Shall a few isolated racist acts keep us all in sackcloth forever, repenting the sins of slave-owning ancestors?” -- Fred Phelps in The Spotlight newspaper, October 30, 1989
In Their Own Words: On Christians
“Most ‘Christians’ today are Christians by name only, and should be ashamed of themselves. They are cowardly, lukewarm, and ashamed of Christ's Word. They have substituted their own pathetic ideas for God's clear commandments... Don't listen to the money-grubbing heretic who stands at the front of your church. Listen to God.” -- FAQ, WBC Godhatesfags.com Web site
“Any church that allows fags to be members in good standing is a fag church... Any church that ordains fags is a fag church...Any church that marries fags is a fag church...Churches...like the Southern Baptists and Assembly of God churches are as much to blame as the out of the closet fag churches...Why? Because they have created an atmosphere in this world where people believe the lie that God loves everybody. This soul-damning lie is the reason that fags are so out-spoken today.” -- “Fag Churches,” WBC Godhatesfags.com Web site
“Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholic, Northern and Southern Baptist, Church of Christ, Assembly of God, etc. have all departed from God. Most well-known preachers (Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robert son, etc.) have departed from God, and disassociated themselves with pure Gospel preaching.” -- “Churches,” WBC Godhatesamerica.com Web site"
Fag priests and dyke nuns is the order of the day for Kansas Catholics. They deserve the sick, perverted leadership that now dooms and damns them.” -- “WBC to picket Catholic fag bash,” WBC flier, June 5, 2000
“The Kansas City Star ran a 3-day, multi-page story about the sex sins of Catholic priests. Botton [sic] line in approximations: one-third are gay, one-third are womanizers, and -- with important exceptions -- the other third mostly covers, pimps and enables the lust-driven two-thirds. WBC will picket Sacred Heart and St. Catherine's Catholic Churches in Emporia in religious protest and warning.” -- “WBC to picke t ___________ in two victim churches in Emporia,” WBC flier, June 3, 2000
“There is a difference between the sense of the sacred...and the goofy ‘communal sensitivity’ at Topeka's sodomite Mexican Catholic Church...Mexican idolaters worship bloody rectums...” -- “Week 394 of the Great Gage Park Decency Drive,” WBC news release, December 31, 1998
“Considering the dispositions of priests and parishioners, more accurate names for some of Topeka's Catholic churches would be: Most Foul Heart of Satan, Antichrist the King, Our Lady of Sodom, Unholy Name.” -- “Whore ________ __ can't Help Elmer Now,” WBC news release, September 28, 1998
“Apostate Methodism is being cursed by God in sending them sodomite heretics as pastors, who are withered & blind...These Satanic evangelists from Hell...for lucre, traffic in the souls of men, walking in craftiness & handling the Word of God deceitfully.” -- “WBC to picket Bishop _________ and St. Paul's Methodist of Lenexa,” WBC news release, March 14, 1998
“Filled with shyster lawyers and crooked judges, the Episcopal Church USA is a cesspool of sodomite sin and crime.” -- “WBC to picket Episcopal General Convention (fag org y) in Philly July 18 - 20,” WBC news release, May 21, 1997
“Like the Episcopalians, Pre sbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, et al., the so-called Christian Church - Disciples of Christ (generally, Congregational Churches) are sodomite churches. They are not true churches of Jesus Christ.” -- “Filthy Fags Own Australia,” WBC news release, October 14, 1996
“Yes, this monstrous hydra, which grows back two heads for every one slain, must be destroyed by the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God...Must be a comfort to you sodomite Episcopalians, that your Catamite church was founded by a faggot king (butt - buddy to Rev. Erasmus of Rotterdam)...Episcopalians hate God.” -- “Pastor Phelps will expose the corrupt Episcopal Church,” WBC news release, January 3, 1996
“The Episcopal Church, founded by the holy whoremonger Henry VIII, welcomes you...to the joys of anal copulating...to exquisite misery in this world, and to everlasting damnation & hell fire in the next!” -- “Westboro Baptist Church will picket Olathe schools & Supt. _________ for caving to ‘Annie’ and filthy fags,” WBC news release, January 2, 1996
In Their Own Words: On America
“The reason for the violence that has been erupting in the United States of America in recent years is that GOD HATES AMERICA.” -- "Children are their oppressors," WBC Godhatesamerica.com Web site
“Mongrel Bush and his Battle of New Orleans...The Sovereign Horseman rides in New Orleans....Get Right with God! You are pouring gasoline on the raging infernos of God's wrath in Iraq and New Orleans...The only fruits meet for repentance in today’s circumstances are these: Completely rid your administration of fags and dykes; and, recriminalize sodomy and abortion, and impose the death penalty for these crimes. Nothing less will do. Otherwise, we warn you again: Expect worse and more of it from that Outraged God your sins have mightily offended.” – WBC Godhatesfags.com Web site , June 9, 2006
“The Columbia scattered all over Texas is a curse! The Tsunami is a curse! Your children shooting each other in the schools is a curse! A child coming home dead from the battle is a curse! Katrina (the whirlwind) is a curse! The US Supreme Court, blindly demanding that the people of this nation give respect to filthy beasts, when God has said they are an abomination, is a curse! This nation is cursed by God and we are doing out duty to warn you that if you will repent and turn from your evil ways — from worshiping the words of your own hands and worshiping that flag and the military and dead bodies ...and stop being filthy, murdering...whores...then God will repent of the evil that he h as purposed again st you! – WBC Godhatesfags.com Web site , May 15, 2006
“America. A sodomite nation of flag-worshiping idolaters. Many States — and now Congress — are moving in a frenzied orgy of lawless, unconstitutional legislation to criminalize WBC's Gospel preaching. They thereby pour gasoline on the raging flames of God Almighty’s wrath which is punishing America by killing and maiming troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Worse and more of it is coming...Military funerals are pagan orgies of idolatrous blasphemy where they pray to the dunghill gods of Sodom and play taps to a fallen fool.” -- WBC news release, May 11, 2006
“America is doomed. U.S.A.=Iraq=Babylon... Thank God for 4 more dead troops. We wish it were 4,000.” -- WBC flier, April 23, 2006
“Take a good look, America. Here are your typical fag-ass American soldiers: “Seven paratroopers charged in gay porn case.” These just happened to get caught. Your Military is filled with fags and dykes. Clinton and Bush did it with executive orders. Don't ask don't tell is a farce. They turned America over to fags; they're coming home in body bags. The curse of God is upon America.” -- WBC flier, February 25, 2006
“We aren't anti - war protestors; we aren't anti-don't-ask-don't-tell protestors; we're the prophets of God... .This war had to happen; Bush has to be persuaded to stay in this war; America had to become Babylon. This is the means by which, God is punishing America, and nothing is going to change that fact. We're going to stay on message....You don't define us; our duty to God does. Whether it's by hurricane, IED, terrorists, or other means, God is punishing this nation. He has become an active enemy fighting against America. That is our message...” – WBC Godhatesfags.com Web site, December 12, 2005
“Thank God for Tsunami. Thank God for 3,000 dead Americans! Yes! Thank God for Sept. 11 and 3,000 dead sodomite Americans in 2001. God sent the Muslim planes to destroy fag New York's twin towers and hurl 3,000 vile Americans into Hell. Even so, God sent Tsunami last week to execute vengeance upon another 3,000, carcasses swallowed up in Asian jungles, and concerning each of whom it shall be said: ‘He shall be buried with the burial of an ass.’ Jer. 22:19” -- WBC flier, January 1, 2005
“We understand that Iraq is the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets without fear of arrest and prosecution. Alas, the United States no longer allows the Gospel to be freely and openly preached on the streets, because militant sodomites now control our government, and they violently object to the Bible message...The same majoritarian sodomite tyranny that now guides the Clinton administration's repressive policies toward Gospel preaching on America's streets, is apparently responsible -- at least in part -- for the merciless slaughter by starvation of 400 innocent Iraqi babies each day in your country. If our government and laws will allow it, and at the invitation of your government, we would like to send a delegation from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, to preach the Gospel on the streets of Baghdad for one week in the near future.” -- Fred Phelps, in a letter to Saddam Hussein, November 30, 1997
“Homosexuals now pervade and control American government at every level and branch. Thus, only those churches that support and promote the militant homosexual agenda enjoy religious freedom. Any church in America that dares to preach what the Bible says about soul-damning, nation-destroying moral filth of the vile homosexual beasts among us, loses all Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and speech rights.” -- Fred Phelps, in a letter to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, July 5, 1997
“The same Bible that prescribes the death penalty for murderers, also prescribes the death penalty for those who engage in homosexual conduct. It is a measure of the perversion of our country -- our near-total alienation from God -- that the masses cannot see this great national hypocrisy.” -- "Homosexuals, also, should have the Death Penalty!" WBC flier, June 14, 1997
“In our experience, no modern country is more repressive of human rights than the U.S.A. The vaunted First Amendment is nothing but empty words on paper...we will journey to China at our expense, and tell our story of modern American repression of human rights, upon invitation.” -- Fred Phelps, writing to the Ambassador to the United States from the People's Republic of China, February 26, 1997