I'm glad they are back. We need more people to stand up to religious fanatic hate groups like the Westboro Baptist morons.
Why do they only show up whenever there's already massive media attention? Sure, they hate gays, but what does that have to do with any of their protests? Either they keep happening to genuinely believe that the latest tragedy is what's most offensive to God or they just love being in the spotlight and poking people in the eye and use religion as a pretext.
It'd be better if instead of vilifying and hacking them, once again giving them play in the media, everyone would just ignore them.
I think the people at the funerals would disagree. This is far too personal for them to be considered media whores.
The usual: money. They make $$$$ from suing people who illegally block their protests. They probably don't hate gays at all. More likely it's a family business.
(Sarcasm aside, its totally possible for a word like "religion" to contain contradictions and you aren't adding anything to the debate with a claim about who is "actually religious" and who is "guised as religious". If they claim it it's theirs.)
Check out the IAmA of a former member:
""" Very little I miss. It was so destructive and took years to undue. I have talked about the sense of security and belonging I can recall feeling from time to time when we were having church services on Sunday evenings. Something about being tucked in that building that's half buried and feeling like we're the only one's that god loves...it's hard to articulate. """
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v99eg/iaman_exmember_o...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlates_of_crime#Religion
Not that it implies causation but food for thought.
It's rediculous how a little group can garner so much attention. You give it to them.
Snark aside, maybe they were doing such things prior to all the attention they got -- but I bet they're doing it more now, and maybe getting donations from other like-minded nutters. When you get down to it, they're trolls -- and the media is breaking rule # 1 of dealing with trolls: don't feed them!
It's what they want. I'm glad that we all think they're despicable but I'm kind of tired of the circle jerk of people thinking they're actors of social change by laughing at their online presence being hacked.