Counter Protesting is Counterproductive with the Westboro Baptist Church

One of the great pleasures of working at UCF is being surrounded by amazing and talented students.

The purpose of my blog has always been to provide a voice and a point of view on subjects that require discussion and action.


Westboro Baptist Church, for me, has always been a group of people, that evoke powerful emotions through their images and actions.  That is their purpose.  They have decided to again to pay a visit to our community at the end of this month.  According to their press release, "WBC will picket the fag-infested pervert run Dr. Phillips High School" on April 29, 2011 from 6:50-7:30am.  For every one of their visits, a lot of energy is spent in deciding, how should we, as a community, respond.  Do we counter protest, displaying support for their targeted organization, but giving WBC the kind of attention they really seek?  Or do we just ignore them because by doing so, we say, "we don't see your actions as significant or even worth our time?"

Sarah Nowak, a graduate student at UCF, did some research on the organization to better understand how it operated and the most appropriate response to their upcoming visit to Orlando.  I invited her to contribute her great work to my blog.  Congratulations Sarah...this is good!!

Counter Protesting is Counterproductive with the Westboro Baptist Church

In The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors VI  “Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores,” Lisa Simpson said that Springfield must stop paying attention to the giant advertising gimmicks; attention is what keeps them motivated. I wish this was the way it worked with the Wetsboro Baptist Church— just ignore them and they will go away. Maybe it’s not as simple as denying the WBC attention (although that is part of it), but there is even more to this tactic that seems to work when we take a look at how the WBC continues to fund their church.

Let me be clear, if the Westboro Baptist Church is “normal” then I’m glad I’m not normal. I’m proud to be queer. If they called me a fag I might just say thank you because it means I’m not like them. Their hateful speech pollutes my air until I suffocate. So, when I found out they were coming to Orlando, I started doing a little research for a clever sign at the counter protest. What I found changed the picture of the WBC as I knew it.  I then enlisted my mom to help me with the research (yea, I know, she’s awesome).  What I learned made me question whether a counter protest was the right approach with the WBC. Here is a summary of what I found, but read the first hand sources yourself and make up your own mind.

The WBC has been called “the most hated family in America” as the members are almost all relatives of Fred Phelps.  The church only claims 100 members, despite the large media presence of the WBC. The funeral protests (military and civilian alike) gained notoriety after Matthew Shepard’s funeral in 1998. Four of Phelps thirteen children are estranged but the rest live in Kansas (most in a WBC compound) with the family and most practice law. In fact, the Phelps Chartered law firm has such a successful reputation, that even those in Kansas who do not like the family utilize their legal services. The law firm’s success helps support the WBC including travel expenses to protests. The Phelps’ do not have any outside contributors to the church, states Shirley Phelps-Roper, the WBC spokesperson.  The church is a 501(3)c which means it has tax exempt status. They do not have to pay taxes they use the protests to find law suits that ultimately contribute to their income: “they know their first amendment rights very well and they have been very good at defending them” says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Their hate speech can get counter protesters so angry they might do something that violates the Phelps’s first amendment rights and the WBC will not hesitate to sue them. When the WBC sues, they generally win tens of thousands of dollars, most of which goes to legal fees. But, as they represent themselves, the legal fees go directly to help support the church.  

Also, I found comments stating that when nobody shows up to counter protest the media doesn’t show up. And when the media doesn’t show up the WBC protestors leave within a few minutes. Maybe the WBC is more like 50-Foot cartoon advertisements than I thought.  By the way, I’ve read that only four of them are supposed to show up for the protest in Orlando at Dr. Phillips High School. The Anti-Defamation League says their primary goal is garnering publicity for the church and its message, and every mention of the WBC is considered a victory.  Interestingly then, the picket schedule they posted online looks more like a band’s tour schedule especially when we consider 1,800+ counter protestors signed up on Facebook. Imagine if they charged admission…

The more I read about their legal history, the more I believed the online comments that the church was only a litigation scam.   I would have been relieved if I knew they didn’t really believe all of this crap but just used this vitriolic rhetoric for monetary gain. Unfortunately, I found reliable sources providing sufficient evidence that the WBC is not a scam. Nevertheless, the WBC does use the courts as a weapon to fund their church and further their message.  All this information was enough for me to agree with the late comedian Mitch Hedberg: “I’m against picketing but I don’t know how to show it.” The Phelps family is good at riling people up with their flag stomping, anti- military, anti- gay, anti-everything rhetoric. In other words, if I participated in a counter protest, there is a good chance I would get so mad that I might say or do something that would give them a reason to sue me. Besides giving me the headache and expense of a lawsuit, they would get more of the publicity they crave and, if they won money from me, I would actually be supporting the very cause I set out to protest.  They recycle the money back into the church and then they have more fuel to continue spreading the same violent rhetoric they have been spouting since 1955. The way to make the WBC shut up is to first do it ourselves. I’ll be protesting the WBC by staying home and keeping my money, my sanity, and my serenity. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish by counter protesting the WBC. Do your own research and then think for yourself.

Sara Nowak is a graduate student at the University of Central Florida pursuing an advanced degree in Non-Profit Management.  She graduated in 2010 from UCF majoring in Multicultural Humanities with a Women's Studies Minor.

If you would like to "disturb the universe," send me an email; disturbuniverse@gmail.com.