Westboro Baptist Church- Is a Hate Crime waiting to happen. I applaud the judge who ruled against this awful group. Here is what happened:

US soldier's father wins payout for church funeral protestFred Attewill and agenciesThursday November 1, 2007Guardian Unlimited Westboro Baptist church members protest outside the federal courthouse in Baltimore. Photograph: Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun/AP

A fundamentalist church that picketed a US soldier's funeral because it believes military deaths in Iraq are punishment for American tolerance of homosexuality has been ordered to pay almost $11m compensation.

Albert Snyder, the father of Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq last March aged 20, sued the Westboro Baptist church claiming that the protests ruined his son's funeral.
The church, based in Kansas, routinely pickets funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, carrying signs with messages including "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags".

Writing on a website dedicated to the late Lance Cpl Snyder, the family said: "Using innocent children to deliver their twisted message of hatred and fear, the defendants in this suit have sought to attack the memory of our departed heroes, to strip their loved ones of their dignity, and to use abuse and intimidation as a tool for preventing surviving family members from reaching closure over their loss."

Mr Snyder's lawyer, Craig Trebilcock, had urged jurors to award an amount "that says don't do this in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again."

A Baltimore federal jury awarded Mr Snyder a total of $10.9m (£5.2m) after ruling that the group had violated the family's privacy and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
The church's leaders reacted defiantly to the verdict, saying it was "an act in futility", and pledged to continue to picket military funerals.

The church's legal team had argued that the burial was a public event and that the protests were protected by the first amendment of the US constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion.

Fred Phelps, the church's figurehead, said he was confident the verdict would be overturned on appeal.
"Oh, it will take about five minutes to get that thing reversed," he said. The assets of the church and its three leaders are less than $1 million.
Before the verdict was announced yesterday, Mr Phelps had stood outside the court holding a sign reading "God is your enemy", while his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, stood on an American flag with a sign proclaiming "God hates fag enablers". Supporters sang "God hates America" to the tune of God Bless America.

The church, whose 75 members are largely composed of Mr Phelps' relatives, is regarded by some as a cult and blames natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the September 11 attacks on lax morality.


About this awful group:
Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is a controversial church, considered by many to be a hate group and a cult, headed by Fred Phelps, and based in Topeka, Kansas, U.S.. It runs the websites GodHatesFags.com,[1] GodHatesAmerica.com and others expressing condemnation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people (LGBT), Roman Catholics, Muslims and Jews, as well as populations it considers to support the forementioned groups, including Swedes, Canadians, Irish and Americans.
The organization is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League,[2] and classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[3][4] Although well-known in LGBT communities for picketing gay pride events and funerals the group achieved national notoriety due to its picketing of funeral processions for soldiers killed in Iraq war combat,[5] which functions as an extension of the Phelps' anti-United States beliefs.
While its members identify themselves as Baptists, the church is an independent church not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations, nor does any Baptist institution recognize the church as a Bible believing fellowship. The church describes itself as following Primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles. Its first public service was held on the afternoon of Sunday, 27 November 1955.[6]
The church bases its work around the belief expressed by its best known slogan and the address of its primary website, "God hates fags", and expresses the idea, based on its Biblical eisegesis, that nearly every tragedy in the world is linked to homosexuality – specifically society's increasing tolerance and acceptance of the so-called "Homosexual Agenda." The group maintains that God hates homosexuals above all other kinds of "sinners"[7] and that homosexuality should be a capital crime.[8]


What I find the most appalling of all, is they are saying they are a church group, but they have no sense of decency and no sense of loving thy neighbor. The fact that they are teaching their children to "hate" and hold up signs isn't that a form or child abuse? These people need to be stopped.