Westboro Baptist Church says they’ll picket Boston Marathon victims’ funerals
The Westboro Baptist Church says they will picket funeral services scheduled for the victims of Monday’s horrific bombing in Boston, Massachusetts.
The church — a Topeka, Kansas-based religious organization that has been labeled by many as a “hate group” — says God allowed the city of Boston to be attacked because Massachusetts was the first state in the US to legalize same-sex marriage.
A tweet sent from one of the church’s accounts on Monday explained their reasoning and announced that the group plans to picket funeral services scheduled in the coming days. So far the bombing has claimed three lives and President Obama called the incident an “act of terror” during a Tuesday morning press briefing.
“The federal government is classifying the bombs as a terrorist attack, but say it’s unclear if it’s of a domestic or foreign nature,” the church writes. “Here’s a hint — GOD SENT THE BOMBS! How many more terrifying ways will you have the LORD injure and kill your fellow countrymen because you insist on nation-dooming filthy fag marriage?!”
“Christ Jesus said that same-sex marriage would prevail just before the time that He returns in power and glory, taking vengeance on the disobedient (Luke 17; 2 Thes. 1). Massachusetts invited this special wrath from God Almighty when it was the FIRST STATE to pass same-sex marriage on May 17, 2004. As a direct and immediate result of that first step down the slippery slope to nationwide fag marriage, God sent the devastating bombs to the Boston Marathon,” says the church.
Previously the group has picketed a number of high-profile funerals while holding signs containing anti-gay messages. The group picketed the funeral of Matthew Sheppard — a homosexual man killed as a result of a hate crime in 1998 — and in recent months attempted to protest services for victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting and film critic Roger Ebert.
On Tuesday, the group continued to credit the attacks as an act of God, not terrorism, and published photos of a new sign likely to appear at any demonstration in Boston — it reads “God Sent the Bombs.”
The group also recorded a song in response to the event and began circulating it early Tuesday. The first verse of “Massachusetts” goes:
“Your fall all began in Massachusetts
Where the wedding fags first found a home
Now God’s light has gone out in Massachusetts
And the whole nation reaps just what you have sown.”
A petition created on the White House’s We the People website back in December asking for the Westboro Baptist Church to be formally recognized as a hate group has so far garnered 354,502 signatures. Two other petitions combined have collected the names of roughly 150,000 people who are asking for the church’s tax-exempt status to be revoked.
Upon news of their plan in Boston, a petition added to the site this week asking the church to be banned from picketing funeral services for the bombing victims has already received over 6,000 signatures.
“It's sickening to know that the WBC will be picketing the funerals of two innocent people, one of which is only an 8 year old child. We can't let them get into Boston and do this,” writes the author of the latest plea. “This is a petition to stop the WBC from getting into Boston, or worse, picketing the funerals of two innocent people. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior.”
Members of the hacktivist group Anonymous have also expressed their disbelief in the church's latest stunt, prompting several so-called Anons to post on the Internet ominous warnings about what could come of a Westboro-led protest.
"Dear @WBCSays, I wouldn't fuck with the people of Boston when they're mad. #BostonBeatDown," the @YourAnonNews Twitter account wrote to its nearly one-million followers.
The church's official website, godhatesfags.com, has also suffered intermittent blackouts since the group said they'd picket the funeral. In the past, Anonymous has used distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to shut down the church's website and waged a campaign to help keep the group out of Newtown, Connecticut after the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school.
Less than 24 hours after two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, police say three people have been killed and more than 100 injured, elevating the attack to one of the most vicious acts of terror seen on US soil since the September 11, 2001 assaults.
