A Defense of 'God Hates Fags' & Lady Gaga: Westboro Baptist as Cultural Vaccine

There surely aren't many more famous religious institutions in America than Westboro Baptist Church or many more famous church leaders than its founder, Fred Phelps. Even if you don't immediately recognize the names, I bet you'll immediately recognize a three-word clue: "God hates fags."

Yup. It's the folks who carry their hate in the name of Jesus across the nation, to synagogues and churches, Holocaust museums and public schools, community centers and state capitals. Most notoriously, they picket the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan with signs reading "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" -- because they believe that as long as America countenances sin, American soldiers deserve to die.

I'd like to offer a limited but real defense for the Phelpsists: They're an attenuated virus vaccine for the American body politic.

Such a vaccine takes a live disease virus and weakens it in some way. For the vast majority of people, the vaccine causes no serious side effects, and instead provokes an immune response that creates a long-term protection against the deadlier form of the ailment.

This kind of vaccine is used to fight such diseases as measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox and influenza. If I'm right, the "Phelpsist vaccine" provokes an immune response against racism, anti-Semitism, anti-gay violence and hubris in the name of the Almighty.

In case you don't know, Westboro is a small church in Kansas, affiliated with no Baptist denomination or even another Baptist church. According to news reports, almost all of its members -- fewer than 100 -- are related to founder Fred Phelps either by blood or marriage.

Their theology is, to put it mildly, extreme. They assert that God hates all manner of people who disobey what the Phelpsists consider to be God's will. I went looking in the King James Version (the translation used by the Phelpsists) for evidence to support their assertion. I found plenty of verses where God takes out some serious wrath on one people or another. Lots of talk about love and repentance. And plenty of verses that include the word "hate." But almost all of those verses were about people who hate God or God's laws or God's prophets.

And yet, I did find a few verses where it says God hates somebody:

Psalms 5:5 -- "Thou hatest all workers of iniquity." Hosea 9:15 -- "All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them." Malachi 1:3 -- "yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau."

Most biblical scholars -- even those who agree with the Phelpsists about the sinfulness of abortion, homosexuality and fornication -- say that their "gospel of hate" is faulty exegesis. (But I'll grant that much larger denominations than the Phelpsist sect erect large scaffoldings of ritual and practice based on fewer verses.)

The theology, however, is not why Westboro is infamous. It's famous because its members hit upon the perfect road to fame in a media-rich era. They carry their intentionally provocative signs from city to city, alighting at places they know will attract the most attention. They maintain a sophisticated website with a constantly updated calendar showing where and when they will strike next. And they create a visual tableau irresistible to TV cameras.

Word of a planned Westboro protest at pop star Lady Gaga's concert in St. Louis on Saturday prompted Gaga to urge fans in a Facebook message before the show: "pay these hate criminals no mind. Do not interact with them, or try to fight. Do not respond to any of their provocation." The Westboro group targeted Lady Gaga earlier this year with fliers that said, "God hates 'Lady' Gaga." Her art and fashion are euphemisms for teaching "rebellion against God," the Westboro flier said. (My Politics Daily colleague Suzi Parker has more details abut the Gaga-Westboro confrontation here.)

Last weekend, they were in North Texas. Next stops on their itinerary included California, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri. I've noticed for a while that wherever they go, people in those towns come up with some kind of reaction. Almost always, any counterprotest vastly outnumbers the Phelpsists, who generally show up with a dozen or so people, plus a few children.

In some places, the reaction is mano-a-mano -- people with signs and slogans to overwhelm the signs and slogans of the Phelpsists. In some places, the reaction is songs and psalms, voices raised in harmony to cover the shouts. In some places, the reaction is a fundraising Phelps-a-thon, which works a lot like any number of cause-related walk-a-thons. Except in this case, donors are asked to contribute so many dollars for every minute the Phelpsists engage their protest.

Some places engage in a sort of dada protest-by-ridicule. Counter-protesters hold up Westboro-style signs reading, "I have a sign!" or "God hates pie!" or something else absurd.

One of my favorite reactions to Westboro is the Patriot Guard Riders, a loose national confederation with chapters in many states. The riders, created by motorcyclists outraged by the pickets at military funerals, bring their choppers and an American flag to a military funeral and station themselves as an honor guard between the mourners and the Phelpsists. The rumble and growl of motorcycle engines drowns out the Westboro slogans.

In other cases, as with Lady Gaga, people choose not to react in any public fashion, the goal being to deprive the Phelpsists of any additional publicity.

But in every case, in every city, Westboro's targets are forced to confront the issues raised by the protests. How does this community feel about hating homosexuals? Or Jews? What are the appropriate ways to respond to the pickets? How certain are we that we know the will of God as expressed in our sacred texts? What is the best and most effective way to recruit opponents to Westboro? (Not surprisingly, "Facebook and Twitter" have become an important answer to that last question.)

What I've yet to find is anything more than a few isolated voices raised in support of the Phelpsists. They gain no converts to their cause, no support for their hatreds. Even those churches where members agree with some of the theology are so repulsed by the way the Phelpsists make their case that they distance themselves.

So Westboro provokes a beneficial response, while causing little or no lasting harm. Just like the vaccine.

For my theory to hold water, though, I needed to find some long-term effect. Did the introduction of the Phelpsists into a community create a reaction that hangs on after they move along? I decided to contact several people in the cities where Westboro had been over the past few months.

Kathy Kniep is the executive director of the YWCA in Clark County, Washington. In early June, she was part of a counterprotest organized when the Phelpsists came to town. The Westboro folks chose to picket a school. While the educators asked that there be no public reaction at their school, several organizations decided to hold an event at another location.

"We made a conscious decision to hold a rally as a positive event to promote what we think is good as opposed to reacting against what we think is bad," Kniep said.

Their event pulled together elected officials, activists and religious leaders from across a spectrum of beliefs and politics, she said. And that could have a long-term effect as they work together on other causes.

"It was not just the lefty liberal social service staff and volunteers," she said.

Isaac Bailey is a columnist for The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Back in May, he wrote about the reaction to a visit there from the Phelpsists. I asked him whether there were residual effects.

"A lot of folks who are usually on opposite sides of the aisle actually protested together against all those things you mentioned -- anti-gay sentiments, religious intolerance, etc.," he said. "I also got word from a few non-profits who received several $100 checks -- including one which is solely designed to help HIV patients and families -- in the name of Westboro Baptist Church -- money they desperately needed and would not have otherwise gotten if Westboro didn't show up."

In April, the Phelpsists visited Charleston, West Virginia. Amy Weintraub, executive director of Charleston Covenant House, organized "flashmobs" to respond. Like the folks in Clark County, these events were intentionally not held near the Westboro pickets. Weintraub said she feared that the pickets could provoke violence, and she wanted to prevent that from happening.

The flashmob consisted of a rehearsed street dance to a disco mix of the old John Denver song "Country Roads." ("It's kind of our state song," Weintraub said.)

At a particular time, on a particular street, the music fired up, people did a little dance, and then melted back into the crowd. Whether it was effective as protest, it was fun. As many as 150 people participated in four performances organized through Facebook.

"It brought together people of all ages and walks of society in ways they never would have, otherwise," she said. And it identified her organization as a potential agent of social change.

Westboro Baptist Church may create a far more permanent legacy than anything to be found in the cities it visits. A federal court case is on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, testing whether restrictions on the group's military funeral pickets violate the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The court will hear an appeal from the father of a Marine killed in Iraq. Albert Snyder's case has been bouncing up through the lower courts since the Phelpsists showed up at his son's funeral in 2006. A jury awarded him a $5 million verdict. But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the signs contained "imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric" protected by the First Amendment.

The high court will hear the case this fall.

Extreme cases like these clarify boundaries in the law. And I would not be at all surprised if the court holds its nose and rules that public free speech is public free speech, even at soldiers' funerals. Which would be powerful protection for the rest of us, whose exercise of public free speech is not likely to be nearly as offensive as the Phelpsists.

To push my metaphor a little more, I admit that Westboro is not harmless. Just as that attenuated virus vaccine sometimes makes people sick, some of Westboro's protests are, no doubt, horribly painful for their targets. And the protests do offer some reinforcement for people who hate in silence or in ways less obvious than horrible signs and slogans. Is the risk worth the benefit?

The folks I contacted disagree.

"I don't wish that group on anybody," Kniep said of the Clark County visit. "There was television coverage of the event here. The quotes from the people from Westboro Baptist Church were just heinous. No good came come of that."

Weintraub took the other side. Was the Westboro visit to Charleston, on balance, a good thing?

"As weird as it sounds," she said, "I would say yes."

Worth it or not? Similar sentiments can be found in other theologies, and I know the danger of getting into a proof-text war, but I'm reminded of a passage that I don't see cited on the Westboro website from the King James translation of the New Testament. Romans 8:28:

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God . . ."