A petition seeking to recognize the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group is now the most popular ever in the history of the White House's digital petition website, the Huffington Post reported. Users have recently swarmed the White House's "We the People" digital petition to show support for designating the Kansas-based collective as a hate group.
Of the numerous petitions seeking to define the church as a hate group, the most popular was submitted Dec. 14 - the day of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which the Westboro Baptist Church responded to by calling on its members to picket the funerals of the 20 children and six adult victims killed.
The Church's spokesperson, Shirley Phelps-Roper, who is related to the group's founder, Fred Phelps, like most members of the organization, the Huffington Post noted, took to Twitter shortly after the Sandy Hook tragedy to announce the church's plans "to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment." The group didn't give a specific time, but a tweet from Margie Phelps implied it would be during the vigil attended by President Barack Obama Sunday evening at Newtown High School.
Recently the Phelps family also sent out tweets concerning the Connecticut school shooting stating, "God sent the shooter."
Westboro's plans to protest the funerals of the victims slain at Sandy Hook quickly made them a target of the "hacktivists" in the hacker group Anonymous, and inspired a "well-attended" counter-protest aimed to shield funeral attendees from the church's members.
Over 270,000 individuals have now signed the most popular petition, "making it the most popular single petition ever created through the White House initiative," according to the Huffington Post. That petition is getting a considerable boost from two other online petitions on the White House's website insisting for the government to revoke the Westboro Baptist Church's tax-exempt status, both of which have far more than the 25,000 signatures required to receive a response from the President.
Controversial for protesting the funerals of fallen U.S. service members, and AIDS victims, the Westboro Church is infamous for its stance that America is currently being punished for its acceptance of gay and lesbian individuals.
"The Westboro Baptist Church is better-known for homophobic displays, suing people and picketing funerals than for providing Christian care to a community. Due to their harassment and politicking, their IRS tax-exempt status should be immediately investigated," a post on the White House's "We the People" online petition forum explains.
The Westboro Baptist Church is "arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Anti-Defamation League is less explicit, but similarly agrees. The church is "a small virulently homophobic, anti-Semitic hate group," it says.
The Westboro Baptist Church's right to picket funerals was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011, as the court claimed it was supported under the First Amendment. Earlier this year, President Obama signed legislation requiring protests be at least 300 feet from military funerals.
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