Westboro Baptist Church=Left Wing Cult?

[Something completely different]

Does "the right" in the US understand the difference between the political "right" and "left"?

[Faith No More]

In the U.S. we tend to generalize complex ideaologies such as political views into dichotomous categories. The "right" labels themself so, and everyone who disagrees must therefore be left and vice versa.

[Aractus]

Well I see you guys have the left/right wing topic covered already, I'd nitpick about calling WBC a "cult". While it is true they practice ex-communication (which is itself somewhat Biblically based, although their interpretation of it is extreme), I wouldn't call WBC a "cult". They're very well organized, very intelligent and fully integrated into society. To label them as a cult is to attribute to them traits which are not true.

They aren't a violent or criminal group they are a pressure group, a political group and a hate group. Bikie gangs tend to be associated with organized crime (or is that only here in Australia) - at any rate, protesting funerals is just their way of expressing their freedom of speech - and they are not allowed to protest too near to funerals anyway (the distance is actually quite far). The one positive thing about WBC is that they defend very diligently the right to free speech.

[Faith No More]

They don't defend free speech; they abuse it. I cherish the right to free speech and do not think they should be censored, but to say they defend free speech is to imply that they are championing the freedom for the freedom's sake. They are opportunists that use free speech to spout their messages of hate, and they would cease to be proponents of free speech the moment they stopped profiting from it.

[Minimalist]

I have no doubt that, if Fred dies a natural death, the WBC will not exert themselves much in spinning it so that his soul departed for heaven leaving behind a useless physical shell, or some such nonsense.

That would make them one of the earliest of xtian heresies!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism

Docetism is broadly defined as any teaching that claims that Jesus' body was either absent or illusory.

I wonder how they would feel about being heretics.

[CapnAwesome]

Well I see you guys have the left/right wing topic covered already, I'd nitpick about calling WBC a "cult". While it is true they practice ex-communication (which is itself somewhat Biblically based, although their interpretation of it is extreme), I wouldn't call WBC a "cult". They're very well organized, very intelligent and fully integrated into society. To label them as a cult is to attribute to them traits which are not true.

They aren't a violent or criminal group they are a pressure group, a political group and a hate group. Bikie gangs tend to be associated with organized crime (or is that only here in Australia) - at any rate, protesting funerals is just their way of expressing their freedom of speech - and they are not allowed to protest too near to funerals anyway (the distance is actually quite far). The one positive thing about WBC is that they defend very diligently the right to free speech.

The ironic thing is that if somehow the Westboro Church got real power, and became anything other than a pathetic sideshow, what do you think would happen to free speech? They don't respect free speech just because they use it. I do think that people make too big of a deal out of them. They came to my college to protest a play about Mathew Shepard once. It's just a few crazy people holding signs, big deal. Easy to ignore. Even near a funeral it would be easy to ignore, do a few nuts holding signs take away from the life of your loved one? No.

I do think they are a cult for a few reasons though. A. They live communally in a compound, very culty. B. They have a cult of personality around Fred Phelps, calling him the wisest human, the only person capable of interpreting the bible. C. Children who have left speak of Fred Phelps being physically and psychologically abusive towards them, to manipulate their beliefs.

I think it's the physical trappings of something that make it a cult, rather than a doctrinal thing. If that's the case you can call anything you want a cult. If your entire family lives in a compound, and they are all controlled by one creepy man, you are a cult.

---

Oh yeah, as for the whole topic thing, yeah Fred Phelps ran as a Democrat, but that doesn't mean he's left wing. At one point he was a civil rights lawyer, at least Fox didn't call them that. Anybody can run as anything you like. I can run as a Democrat too. It doesn't mean anything about me as a person. I don't know if I'd call them left wing or right wing. They get a lot of attention for the anti-gay thing, but they pretty much hate everyone and everything that isn't them. The Fox article is probably the most poorly done piece of propaganda I've seen in a while. I mean people do that shit all the time in the media, they are just normally more subtle about it.

[KichigaiNeko]

WBC is a cult

As is ALL religion.

[Minimalist]

I think it's the physical trappings of something that make it a cult, rather than a doctrinal thing.

A cult is any religion but your own.

[TaraJo]

I do think that people make too big of a deal out of them. They came to my college to protest a play about Mathew Shepard once. It's just a few crazy people holding signs, big deal. Easy to ignore. Even near a funeral it would be easy to ignore, do a few nuts holding signs take away from the life of your loved one?

Again, it wasn't always this way. I can't emphasize how much things changed with them when they started protesting at military funerals because that's when everyone else woke up and started paying attention to them. Before that, they were already fairly well known in GLBT circles but just a footnote elsewhere. And back then, they would literally get in people's faces and yell at them. They made it impossible to ignore them with some of that crap.

[CapnAwesome]

Again, it wasn't always this way. I can't emphasize how much things changed with them when they started protesting at military funerals because that's when everyone else woke up and started paying attention to them. Before that, they were already fairly well known in GLBT circles but just a footnote elsewhere. And back then, they would literally get in people's faces and yell at them. They made it impossible to ignore them with some of that crap.

I don't really doubt that they would get in people's faces, I just haven't really seen it myself, and I have a special place in my heart for watching stuff about the WBC. Still, who cares. Crazy homeless people yell at me from time to time. I don't have an emotional breakdown over it. You know that people actually assault the WBC members from time to time. That is how the church finances, by suing them. Most of them are lawyers. I think this is my favorite WBC documentary:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtfgxo_...shortfilms