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Online Petition to Reclassify Westboro Baptist Church as a Hate Group Gains Momentum

A petition created Dec. 16 already has more than 46,000 supporters.

 

A petition to "Revoke the tax exempt status of the Westboro Baptist Church and re-classify Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group" has been filed on the White House, We the People, website.

Westboro Baptist Church tweeted this weekend that it would picket funerals of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut and a group of hackers responded by posting contact information - email, address and phone numbers - of members of the church.

Westboro Baptist Church is an extremist organization whose members are known for picketing soldiers' funerals in protest of gay marraige - which they believe is the cause of everything evil.

The petition reads:

Westboro Baptist Church is legally recognized as a religious organization and therefore receives a tax exempt status under our laws. The Phelps family and their supporters use these tax exempt funds to finance a country-wide campaign against any person or group they feel promotes values that do not meet with their own. Most prominently they are anti-gay.

The members of this hate group make a practice of targeting funerals to make their case, routinely inflicting further pain and anguish onto the mourning families of deceased soldiers and, even worse, the victims of tragic crimes. They hold signs thanking God and celebrating the deaths of these people. They wave these signs in the faces of the families.

By granting their tax exemption WE ARE FUNDING THEIR HATE. This must change.

Beth December 19, 2012 at 01:35 am
I believe this group to be a hate group. I have practiced Christianity for 30 years and am a member of a Southern Baptist Church. I believe Westboro Baptist Church to be better classified as a cult or hate group rather than a church. Thank you. Beth Jackson
s December 19, 2012 at 01:39 pm
I dont believe people like this!!! I believe they need to find another church that is a Christian church and not this way of thinking. This is just not very Christian in my book or lots of others. Sherry A.
Terry Taylor January 18, 2013 at 02:36 pm
Jesus stood and stands for Love not Hate.
Chris Shoemaker January 22, 2013 at 01:20 am
Attacking them back is just as bad as what they do.

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