What is WBC's motive?

Posted by Capn Coconuts On Saturday, January 28, 2012 0 comments
THIS IS WHAT WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH ACTUALLY BELIEVES... well, not quite.

There are some people who believe that Westboro Baptist Church is just in it for attention. In essence, they probably don't believe what they preach and just feel the urge to troll people for the lulz.

There are also some people who believe that Westboro Baptist Church is some sort of "scam"--that it deliberately does its actions for the sake of money. The only reason the congregation pickets is for idiots to do something stupid so they can sue them for money.

But, as far as the church as a whole goes, both groups are wrong. Westboro Baptist Church members actually believe what they picket. It's embedded into their minds every Sunday; their punishing schedules revolve around their beliefs, and historical evidence leaves no other alternative.

Both theories make assumptions. The attention theory assumes that the church would be more willing to spend money to travel through the United States than they would be willing to troll on internet message boards for free, and the latter assumes that their motive is greed. Fred Phelps's motive is not greed or negative attention, though he seems to enjoy the latter. His motive can only be hate. As Mark Phelps describes his father:

"My father is addicted to hate. Why? I can't say. But I know he has to let it out. As rage. In doing so, he has violated the sacred trust of a parent and a pastor."
--Mark Phelps, son of Pastor Fred Phelps
Mark believes that, since his father is unable to vent his rage towards his family anymore, he must vent it towards other people. This may explain (at least in part) why Westboro Baptist Church never picketed anywhere until 1991, and how Fred managed to get himself disbarred from Kansas courts in 1979 and federal courts in 1989. Hate may very well be the motive of Fred Phelps, making him a narrow-minded bigot who believes that God hates the world as much as he does. And what is a better target to hate in this day and age than the LGBT crowd?

So, then, my answer to the question in the title is this: deep down, Fred's motive is that he hates people. For the church as a whole, their motive is that they actually believe it because Fred indoctrinated them with it.

Don't subscribe to wishful thinking. WBC actually is as messed up as they appear.

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