by Jesse Galef
What do the Jews and the Gays have in common? The horrid Westboro Baptist Church is protesting against both! Sorry, that probably wasn’t as funny a punchline as you expected. It does, however, have the advantage of being true. From a USA Today article:
The change in focus has caught Jewish leaders by surprise. While the group has always had anti-Semitic tendencies, it had largely stayed away from Jewish sites until this year.
In Washington, Margie Phelps balanced several signs targeting Jews, Israel and the Obama administration. One read “Rabbis Rape Kids,” another said “God Hates Jews.” Margie Phelps’ T-shirt read “Jews Killed Jesus.” She argued with men and women passing by, warning them that God will soon send the Jews to hell.
“I don’t care what you claim, chosen wise,” she said. “Obedience is the standard.”
What a disgusting and desperate attempt to get attention. How long before someone breaks Godwin’s Law? Three… two… one…
“This is more about generating ink and outrage than it is about attacking Jews per say [sic],” said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. “But their language is absolutely Hitler-esque. They talk of filthy Jews and Jews murdering Christ.”
Since April, Westboro members have protested more than 200 Jewish institutions and sent thousands of anti-Semitic faxes to American Jewish officials. “I guess they felt it was a successful tactic,” said Deborah Lauter, the national civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League.
It’s always a difficult question: do you counter-protest and give them more attention, or do you let them spew their hate unchecked?
I’m usually in favor of staging a counter-protest, but not for the purpose of addressing the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). A counter-protest can bring people together as a shared rejection of hatred and a symbolic gesture of solidarity. It serves as an excuse for people to come together and reaffirm their peaceful views, rather than as an attempt to out-shout the opponents – that would be pointless.
The audience is not the rabid fundamentalists, it’s the others in the community. It’s a nice way to let the gays/Jews know that they are not alone. If nobody bothers to counter-protest, some might get the wrong impression.
The article says that religious leaders on the far-left and far-right have come together to condemn the WBC’s tactics. I hope it was just lazy journalism and that there are non-religious individuals and leaders also opposing bigotry and hatred.
Jabster: “I see a lot of things science has produced for our benefit. Religion hasn’t given us anything to compare.”... 
Brian: the first time I see a monk levitate up to the moon I’ll start giving religion a little more respect. Theologians... 
49 Comments
I’m surprised it took them this long to get to Jews.
I wish they’d target me. I’d feel a helluva lot better about myself.
Send some pictures of yourself doing something “sinful” like eating shrimp or drinking milk & eating meat at the same time… that’s bound to get their attention, right?
Or wearing a mixed-thread shirt.
Westboro Baptist has such an opposite effect… If they say it’s evil, I automatically assume it’s OK.
Indeed, it’s a public service. “Ah, the hateful crazies hate something new today. Maybe we should check it out.”
Much like the PA rating system. I expect the music I buy to be labeled “Warning: Explicit lyrics”.
I wouldn’t waste my time protesting these people. I wouldn’t even waste my time getting offended by anything they say, ever. Reaction is what they want, like children. To give them a reaction would only legitimize their actions in their own minds.
Yeah, that strategy worked so well for marginalizing the likes of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
First time I saw Ann Coulter, I honestly did think she was Poe. I mean, even Faux News wouldn’t put somebody that batshit crazy on air and expect you to take her seriously, right? Man, I miss that feeling of innocence…
I really doubt Coulter believes what she says. If you guaranteed her twice as much money for saying the exact opposite of what she’s saying now, I bet she’d snatch up that offer in a heartbeat.
Does thinking this make me a bad person (aside from all the fag-supporting, mixed-thread-wearing, and mixing dairy and meat)?:
What’s the difference between Carrie Prejean and Ann Coulter? For enough money, Coulter would snatch up that offer.
Are there no laws against this in the US? Seriously? They’d ALL, without exception, be in prison for inciting racial hatred if this were the UK. Actually, I wish they’d try it in the UK just for that reason. That way Fred could get sodomized by his cell-mate “Bowling Ball Bag” Bob, and we could see him try to justify how he still gets to go to heaven. Hopefully Margie would just get stabbed and die. I really mean that, by the way.
Our free speech is more free that your free speech.
Whether that is a good or bad thing is up for argument. Personally, I like me the US version, but that could just be latent ye olde parochialism.
I’m not so sure that yours is best. Prejudiced and bigotted minorities can and do use dogma and outright lies to influence the majority. Do you really think that the majority of Germans in the 1940s really wanted to see the Jews exterminated as a race? I somehow doubt it. Hate-speach laws are designed to prevent a single group from becoming scape-goats and targets for everybody else. I would think that atheism in the US could benefit from some anti-prejudice laws of its own, on that score!
Do you really think that the majority of Germans in the 1940s really wanted to see the Jews exterminated as a race? I somehow doubt it.
When it comes to genocide, there isn’t much difference between actively wanting some group dead, and simply not minding one day if someone else disappeared them; it is pretty clear that a majority of Germans at the time fulfilled that second part. We tend to forget just how bitterly deep antisemitism ran in European culture (not to mention American culture) back in those days. The antisemitism that Hitler was a purveyor of was not anywhere out of left field; he was just working with what he already had to work with. Absent a grassroots unconcern for the fates and lives of the group at issue, hate speech never gets to genocide, and that is not the fault, per se, of the demagogue, but more of a humanity-fail of the society he or she is in.
I accept that Europe was a pretty Jew-hating place back then (and in fact has been for large chunks of history), but I still don’t accept that the average German would have wanted Auschwitz to happen.
Like I said, it’s not that they wanted it to happen, so much as they didn’t really care.
Again, I disagree. I think the truth is that they simply didn’t know. They were told that the Jews were being relocated to conquered territories to the East, and couldn’t imagine where else they could all be vanishing to. Sure, some probably realised, but I think most just accepted the official story until it was too late.
If we’re so sure they’re wrong, why should we censor them? People have a right to their opinions, no matter how bad they are. It’s the actions that matter. Sticks and stones, you know.
And nice Bloodhound Gang reference.
No. People don’t have a god-given … I mean a right to spew hate and treat it as valid opinion.
Personally I feel people also shouldn’t tell lies about other people, but it’s clear the good Christians of Westboro and several other churches don’t agree.
I’m glad for the hate speech laws we have in Canada. Generally keeps things clear while not suppressing lawful, reasonable debate, including some stuff that comes perilously close to hate speech.
In fact, in the two most prominent instances where hate speech laws were used to try and censor a publication (the Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn/Maclean’s affairs), the Human Rights Council upheld the right of both to publish complete and utter Islamophobic crap.
So I’ll stick with hate speech laws and a certain amount of limited censorship so that the waters of sociopolitical discourse don’t keep getting pissed in by fools and poltroons such as Stormfront and the Phelpsers.
Speech is a rhetorical action that can be used to stimulate action. As such it is an act, and can be criminal in intent and nature. Otherwise, why can someone who suggests a murder be prosecuted?
Otherwise, why can someone who suggests a murder be prosecuted?
Well, down here in the states, they can’t, unless many other conditions are also met. Those conditions exist to separate speech pursuant to action from mere speech.
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I hereby propose a daring hypothesis: the excellence of a democratic country’s beer is inversely proportional to the strength of their free speech protections.
I can see the Ireland > Canada > USA progression, but where would the Netherlands fit in? Or Germany? I was under the impression they were fairly free to speak their minds.
If your hypothesis pans out, though, I’m on the next plane to Turkey.
Germany has rather ridiculous speech laws regarding content in media, especially video games (no human blood or explicitly human violent deaths). Not to mention their entirely understandable and yet absolutely wacky overreaching speech laws concerning Nazis, the Shoah, and ethnic/religious defamation.
Germany has awesome beer.
Netherlands seems like an exception, which might inspire a corollary to the hypothesis such as “…excepting countries not significantly bigger than Rhode Island”.
I’m going to be controversial: Germany’s beer is massively over-rated. Really. I’ve been drunk all over Europe. The UK has many, many better ales than Germany, and German lager is frothy piss-water. That said, American lager is sweet frothy piss-water.
I’ve found some of the micro-brewery stuff rather nice. Yes, the main-stream lager tastes like pee but there is some good stuff if you look for it. Can you imagine if England was judged just on John Smith’s?
Personally I like Newcastle Brown.
“I’ve been drunk all over Europe”
I want to be your padawan…
My personal best is being drunk in England, Wales, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, all in the same week.
@ Elemenope: I’m biased – my aunt was married to a Neame of the Shephard Neame brewery, makers of Spitfire, Canterbury Jack and Bishops Finger to name but a few. I’ve been raised on good beer :-)
Fair enough. As I understand it, German beer styles vary widely depending on region, but none of them are as punchy as a solid English ale or a good stout. Then again, Germany’s speech restrictions are more narrowly focused than England’s, so it follows the hypothesis. :)
> “I hereby propose a daring hypothesis: the excellence of a democratic country’s beer is inversely proportional to the strength of their free speech protections.”
Do they even have beer in Zimbabwe?
At that level, it doesn’t qualify as beer. It’s classified as a hard liquor at a certain point.
Do you know that in Russia, beer is classed as a soft drink? They sell it in stalls outside schools. Seriously.
Is Zimbabwe a democratic country?
Ah, I missed the “democratic” qualifier.
Anyway, Mugabe says it’s a democratic country. And he should know – he’s the one running it.
LOL. “See? It says so, right on the tin!”
Hmmm. Well Canada isn’t a democracy either. And our beer varies wildly.
Still, I am willing to drop all other projects and unhesitatingly devote my spare moments to comparing and contrasting. All in the interests of science, o’course.
I always thought that the Patriot Guard had a good strategy, attending the funerals of soldiers (at the family’s request) which might be targeted by the WBC and generally blocking them from view and drowning them out.
Well, I’m pleased to see that they’re so petrified of becoming irrelevant that they’ve been forced to ratchet up their invective. I think the only place they have to go after this is white supremacy, and then they should fizzle out entirely.
Um…after reading the Bible (yes, I did. Once.) I got the impression that it was the Italians (Romans) that killed Jesus?
Don’t bring that up around Pope Palpatine!
That is one of several aspects of Christianity spun (hard) by Constantine. Depictions of Jesus went from “criminal executed by the state for rabble-rousing” to “agent of the state arrayed in Roman soldier’s gear and adorned by an Imperial halo”.
Opposition to bigotry and hatred, in my experience, has been the default position of most atheists I’ve met. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure we all know how gays and liberals feel about Phelps & Friends. I think the journalists tend to focus on the religious response to WBC because supposedly, these guys are a part of their religion…and in this case, because they’ve only recently targeted Jews, the journalist probably would like to get a response from that front.
I have heard a decent argument that the WBC is running a huge scam; they infuriate people, then sue over having their civil rights infringed. That’s pretty sneaky. I have been following this group for some years now, and this explanation is the one that makes the most sense to me. Most adults in the church are lawyers- Fred Phelps himself specialized in civil rights cases. He has said, “I systematically brought down the Jim Crow laws of this town.”(referring to Topeka, Kansas) He won multiple awards for his work on behalf of the civil rights movement, one awarded by the NAACP. I hesitate to guess to what extent they really believe what they say, but it does seem very carefully designed to incite reaction from people without crossing the legal boundaries.
http://kanewj.com/wbc/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1999/03/man-who-loves-hate
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=184
I’m glad you’re drawing attention to this, but Godwin’s Law does not apply here.
Godwin’s Law is for when people make spurious or questionable connections with Nazi Germany, like the Chewlies Gum representative in the movie Clerks. This is not at all spurious or questionable connection. The Westboro people are directly cribbing Hitler, here. This isn’t just some idiot teabagger drawing a Hitler mustache on Pres. Obama. This is a group that is actively engaged in direct, unambiguous hate speech against Jews.
“It’s a nice way to let the gays/Jews know that they are not alone. If nobody bothers to counter-protest, some might get the wrong impression.”
My initial reaction when I read this was, “don’t worry, I know these are an isolated bunch of nutjobs – don’t give them the satisfaction of a response”. But then I remembered the quote (is it from Niebuhr?) saying, “all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to stand by and do nothing”. And so I don’t know what the best thing to do would be…
Actually, I do have an idea. I think the members of this church should be approached privately for discussion. Group protests would only give them more publicity and wouldn’t affect their views one bit; in fact it would only further entrench them. Individual conversations give them no publicity and at least have a chance of giving them another source of information and alternate ways of thinking about things.
I disagree with you only on your treatment of Godwin’s Law.
You can not “break” Godwin’s Law. It is not a prescriptive law; it is a descriptive one (you fulfill it, not break it). Furthermore, Godwin’s Law only applies to erroneous Hitler comparisons; it does not apply to comparisons that are apt, such as the views of WBC (a far-right wing organization) on Jews to those of Hitler (a leader with far-right views).
I didn’t realise that anybody took a law which was, let’s face it, pretty light-hearted to begin with so seriously!
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