Westboro Baptist Church protests in Joplin, MO
 

Article about the protest

WBC's press release as posted on their web site - which states, "THANK GOD FOR 125 DEAD IN JOPLIN".

These guys are some seriously sick fucks (but we knew that). :mad:

According to this their evilness was thwarted.

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.a...81474979383365

Sweet. http://cache.autoanything.com/images...bs_up_icon.gif

A friend of mine along with her daughter went to counter protest so I will have to ask her what happened.

If the second article is true that this group has been hindered from protesting, then wouldnt these sickos be within their rights to file lawsuits because they were prevented from their first amendment rights to assemble & protest (no matter how despicable)?

They can file all the lawsuits they want against a bunch of truckers who can all say "oh jeepers, I ran out of gas and couldn't move my vehicle. So sorry."

My friend who posted about this on FB only mentioned about the truckers/bikers at the Flying J and nothing about the HWP. That part sounds off.

They probably will, it's what they do. But the passive agressive counter-response is becoming common to them. Problem is that that is going to backfire/explode and someone's going to get hurt.

One town had pretty much the entire town in on it, cops included, and it hit a point where it was no longer 'payback' and became abuse. Abuse of asshole bigots, but abuse.

Damn thing's a cult.

If people would stop giving these tools attention, they would shrivel up and die.

That is amazing.

Awesome! :)

Why isn't what these people are doing considered harassment? They aren't peacefully protesting, but are a public nuissance. Shouldn't there be some way to stop them?

Snyder v. Phelps (the Wiki version)

And actually, given that they're not engaging in violence, they are peacefully protesting. Just because it's terribly offensive doesn't mean it's not peaceful.

I remember when that case was finished. I disagree with the judge, but that's my opinion. I am definitely not a lawyer or a judge. I still believe this falls under the same sort of idea as cyber bullying. You can't be a cyber bully and say awful stuff, but you can stand in public and do the same??? :confused:

I giggle when I think of how the folks in Mississippi handled it. :D

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/a-simpl...ral-protesters

There's a level of irony here I'm not even going to address.

That said, no it's not cyber bullying or the equivalent. They're not making calls
to the people's houses, they're protesting in a public area. Similarly they're not targeting an individual, just exploiting an individual's death.

What we call "cyberbullying" is really harassment, something that is completely illegal IRL, but just as saying something mean on the internet or having jackassy opinions on the internet does not make one a cyberbully, having jackassy opinions in the real world doesn't equal harassment either.

You can say "god hates fags" online all you like, as evidenced by WBC's website. Similarly you can go in public and yell it and carry signs.

I'm of the opinion that any law prohibiting WBC would be detrimental to free speech.