I was going to post this in RGT videos, but WBC tends to generate discussion and I would expect how they are viewed in 2013 is rather different to how they were viewed several years ago. While it would be tortuous to have the funeral of a loved one picketed by this group, much of their five minutes of fame / shock value has worn off. What I would be concerned about is, what might happen when Fred dies, and one of the adult children takes over the group. A lot of the adults are crazy scary. What is reassuring though is that some of the younger members are continuing to leave (albeit in small numbers).

My original post starts now:
I don't think this has been posted before, although it is from 2010.
Shirley Phelps-Roper with daughters Megan and Rebecca (Megan is one of two sisters that most recently left WBC) were invited to be guests for a Journalism class at a university.

Part 1 of 7 starts here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AaFW2yhIMw

I found it interesting, as it focused more on the WBC wrt to the First Amendment, though it devolved into religious arguments towards the end of the class. What little I know about how they got started (protesting a city park where an area was being used for gay sex encounters), it sounded accurate and, dare I say it, fairly reasonable - at least the principle, if not the methods. Shirley then starts to explain how they progressed from there to their current manifesto, and thats where things start to get foggy.

Anyway, Shirley is a rather interesting character, imo. If you can separate her from the hateful message that fuels WBC, she is actually sharp, witty, intelligent and well-spoken, actually rather likeable. In contrast, most of her siblings that I know of, the adult WBC clan, come across as quite detestable.

Here's a contrast, when Thunderf00t interviewed daughter Megan, chaperoned by Aunt Megan (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTSbfs32yCU , "They were very courteous when they greeted me, Megan and Megan, one young and pretty, the other as ugly as her opinions")

The class Q&A was disappointing in question quality, though the students often laughed and congratulated themselves on asking probing questions, they were just no match for Shirley.



Thoughts on WBC in 2013?

I only listened to about half of the Journalism class session ( already seen the less palatable session you linked ). Shirley may be technically correct concerning most of the biblical references and the modern ignorance of most "Christians" and "atheists", especially those in the West; however, I do not think that Yeshua would approve of the WBC's intended protest at the funerals of the victims in the recent Boston Marathon bombing. Boston is such a maligned city: e.g., the Tea Party, home of the 9-11 planes and now this.

There's a couple of questions for which I would like to know the answer:

- Why do they use the word 'f*g', which is undoubtedly a hate-term, when referring to those who they supposedly 'love'? This charade of it being an act of love to warn those around you of their sinful nature loses all credibility when you simultaneously insult them with hateful language. If you have ever seen video of the youngest Phelps children using the word as if it is a common noun. Here is a good example of how the children are being indoctrinated and clearly don't understand what the adults are doing, merely mimicing them: linky (Louis Theroux's BBC documentaries are worth watching, The Most Hated Family in America and Americas Most Hated Family in Crisis).

- Related to the above, why is their focus almost entirely based on homosexuality? Their response to critics about the loving nature of God is that the Bible contains much more scripture on the wrath of God - and again, if you ignore the question of whether Christianity is actually true, I'm not sure you could level complaints of inconsistency or of only reading the "good" parts of the Bible...except for this completely unbalanced weighting of homosexuality as being the cause of all the world's problems! How much scripture talks about this topic? Very little, right?

I am not particularly scared or concerned by WBC (outside of the possibility that someone commits an act of physical violence given their obsessions against a gay person or otherwise). In fact, I am somewhat glad they exist. WBC acting ridiculous gives us all an opportunity to universally condemn their actions and pat ourselves on our backs for doing so. That, I think, is a useful exercise for a society to go through. It gives the opportunity for people who might not normally be inclined to stick up for homosexuals the chance to do so given how egregious they are. The net social effect (ignoring the unfortunate cost to the poor families who are picketed) is, I think, a positive one.

Somewhat surprised I'm not the only one who thinks this.

My understanding is that WBC is essentially a family-run scam that works by trolling people at funerals and then suing civic authorities when they get attacked or injured.

I noticed how the outrage about WBC only became really mainstream when they started picketing soldiers' funerals. For some reason that's so much worse than harrassing bereaved relatives of dead gay people.

Anyway I think you make a good point. By explicitly linking homosexuality in everyone's minds to dead American soldiers, they do create a different 'good vs evil' paradigm.