Westboro Baptist Church Responds to Takedown Threat from Hacker Group Anonymous: 'Bring It!'

This week, the hacker group Anonymous, which has successfully disabled sites associated to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak  as well as sites like Visa in the name of Wikleaks founder Julian Assange, and the Church of Scientology, issued an ultimatum to the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church.

Said Anonymous in an open letter:

We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS - the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People - have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism. We have always regarded you and your ilk as an assembly of graceless sociopaths and maniacal chauvinists & religious zealots, however benign, who act out for the sake of attention & in the name of religion.

Being such aggressive proponents for the Freedom of Speech & Freedom of Information as we are, we have hitherto allowed you to continue preaching your benighted gospel of hatred and your theatrical exhibitions of, not only your fascist views, but your utter lack of Christ-like attributes.

They added:

ANONYMOUS cannot abide this behavior any longer. The time for us to be idle spectators in your inhumane treatment of fellow Man has reached its apex, and we shall now be moved to action. Thus, we give you a warning: Cease & desist your protest campaign in the year 2011, return to your homes in Kansas, & close your public Web sites. 

 Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS: We will target your public Websites, and the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated; the damage incurred will be irreversible, and neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover. It is in your best interest to comply now, while the option to do so is still being offered, because we will not relent until you cease the conduction & promotion of all your bigoted operations & doctrines.

The warning has been given. What happens from here shall be determined by you.

Read the full letter from Anonymous here.

Yesterday, the Westboro Baptist Church took up the gauntlet, telling Anonymous, "Bring It!"

Check out thei full flyer, AFTER THE JUMP...

Bartering Hate: Westboro Baptist Church Trades Picket of 9-Year-Old's Funeral for Time on Radio Stations

Westboro Baptist Church won't be picketing the funeral of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green — they've bartered their hate for time on two radio stations:

Shirley Phelps-Roper said radio stations in Phoenix and Toronto, Ontario, Canada, offered to give the Topeka church airtime to discuss its views in exchange for its members not picketing the girl's funeral.

Phelps-Roper said she and three other church members would be in Tucson for  Friday's funeral of U.S. District Judge John M. Roll, who also was slain on  Saturday.

She said the Arizona law, which prohibits protests at or near funeral sites, would be of little consequence to herself or other picketers, who planned to be at least 1,000 feet from the church where Roll's funeral will take place.

Said Phelps-Roper: "Until our testimony is complete...there's not any power -- no law, no human -- in this country that's going to be able to shut us up."

 

Westboro's Shirley Phelps-Roper Loves Supreme Court's Women

Shirley Phelps-Roper and her anti-gay comrades from the Westboro Baptist Church appeared before the Supreme Court yesterday.

While it will be a bit until the Justices weigh in on whether Roper and her pals from the Westboro Baptist Church have a right to picket dead soldiers' funerals, Phelps-Roper has already penned a summary of her experience, a summary she sent to the gay blog Good As You.

Basically, Phelps-Roper loved the female Justices, but wasn't so hot on the men:

Alito was a serious disappointment. I don't know why I would expect him to man up and tell a squally rebel to drink a frosty mug of shut the hell up and AVERT your eyes.

On the other hand, the three women were lions of proper and simple First Amendment Law. When a nation is cursed of God, everything becomes so complicated and there [i]s no MAN among the people, so I find that dynamic to be altogether perfect.

Ah, well, let's see what Phelps-Roper thinks of these judicial women after they reach a verdict.

Shirley Phelps-Roper: We Burned a Quran, and Nobody Cared!

The Westboro Baptist Church's Shirley Phelps-Roper is speaking out about Pastor Terry Jones and his plans to burn Qurans on 9/11. She's angry, but not for the reasons everyone else is:

Her irritation Wednesday was not that the Rev. Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center's planned bonfire would offend Muslims worldwide and probably increase the danger to American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's that in 2008 she and her father's Topeka flock set fire to a Quran in plain view on a Washington, D.C., street and nobody seemed to care.

"We did it a long time before this guy," Phelps-Roper said by telephone from a street corner in downtown Chicago, scene of the latest Westboro picket — against Jews this time, not gays.

The difference could be that in 2008 many news media outlets had decided to ignore the group's routine of spewing hatred at funerals of fallen American soldiers.

So when Fred Phelps, calling Muhammad a "pedophilic gigolo," went online and invited people to attend the burning, most stayed away.

Wonder if she's going to be bridesmaid at the wedding?

Listen: Megan Phelps-Roper and Westboro Baptist Church's Epic Cover of Lady Gaga's 'Telephone', Called 'Ever Burn'

Well, maybe "epic" is a bit of hyperbole.

You know, they had so much success with their version of "Poker Face" (it's here if you missed it) they had to get this one out quickly, because it's headed with a bullet to the top of the Evangelical Top 40.

Here's a sample of the lyrical brilliance:

Shut up, shut up, Rebel
You talk; God don’t hear a thing.
All you got is lust, no will to just obey, obey
Wha-wha-what did you say?
You think God loves your praying?
He hates all you do
Cause you love fornicating
F-fornicating
F-fornicating
He hates all you do
Cause you love fornicating

No hesitation; you got more perversion to display
But there’s no part of you ya haven’t pimped already
You should’ve planned for curses from the God you disobey
Now he hates all you do cause you love fornicating (Ugh!)

Stop prayin’, stop prayin’, God will not hear you anymore
You taught the boys & the girls to be proud whores
Stop prayin’, stop prayin’, God will not hear you anymore
You taught the boys & the girls to be proud whores

Clip and lyrics, AFTER THE JUMP...

Fred Phelps Was a 'Brilliant' Civil Rights Lawyer Before He Started Hating Gays for a Living

CNN makes note of Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps past as a "brilliant" civil rights lawyer:

"By the time Phelps moved to Topeka in 1954, it had become the launching ground for the modern civil rights movement. That was the year the U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in public schools with its historic Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education decision. Jack Alexander, a Topeka native and civil rights activist, says the Brown decision opened the door for discrimination suits. Phelps would take cases in the 1960s that other lawyers, black and white, wouldn't touch, he says. 'Back in that era, most black attorneys were busy trying to make a living,' says Alexander, who attended Topeka's high school when the Brown case was filed and went on to become the first black person elected to Topeka's water commission. 'They couldn't take those cases on the chance they wouldn't get paid. But Fred was taking those cases.' Phelps was so successful that he became the first lawyer blacks would call when they thought they were being discriminated against, says the NAACP's Scott. 'Most blacks -- that's who they went to,' Scott says. 'I don't know if he was cheaper or if he had that stick-to-it-ness, but Fred didn't lose many back then.' Douglas, the Topeka civil rights activist and former fire chief, says Phelps was such a 'brilliant attorney' that he made enemies. 'He made a fortune on all those cases,' Douglas says. 'All the businesses hated him because he was so successful. I think if they discriminated against Martians, he would have done those cases. He could make money."

Shirley Phelps-Roper explained to the network her belief that there's no contradiction between Phelps civil rights work and his anti-gay crusading, and it hinges on the church's belief that being gay is somehow a choice:

"That's because there's a distinct difference between gay people and black people, she says. 'You're born black. It's something you can't change even if you're Michael Jackson,' she says. 'God never said it was an abomination to be black.'"

Most Hated, Anti-Gay Preacher Once Fought for Civil Rights [cnn]