Anyone who follows the WBC protests will quickly come to realize that attempting to reason with them is a waste of breath at best.

Q: So, what is an individual who finds the content of their speech deeply offensive to do?
A: Get people to laugh, either at silly signs or at them, both work.

The WBC people want to be taken seriously. The protest trips to various places are all attempts to get their message to be discussed by the general public. When people end up laughing at these events, it diminishes the effect of their protests. For people who wander by it is no longer just “oh hey, that’s the WBC people, they hate gays/Jews/[insert people involved in recent event here],” it is “oh hey, that’s the WBC people. I remember a funny sign I saw. It made me laugh. I’ll have to remember to tell my friends about it (or maybe send the picture I took of that sign to my friends).”

Or, at least, that’s what I hope happens.

I don’t want the WBC people to be taken seriously. I would like their extremist beliefs to be ridiculed and dismissed. Talking to them, attempting to reason with them, and trying to debate them hasn’t worked.

So why not try laughter?

As an side note: As much as I find their views abhorrent, their right to say it MUST be protected. The speech that we disagree with the most is the easiest to censor.

Also, for a laugh: You may remember that the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, Megan Phelps-Roper, decided to remake Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”: http://tinyurl.com/ydbklfw
Well, some friends I met up with after the event in front of the Jewish News Weekly got them to sing it (their singing is awful). And then we had a little fun with them.

The fun begins shortly after the 4 minute mark.

Cary – you’re right, but they’re too outrageous to not get attention.

Rex – everyone I spoke with seemed to understand this was an extremist group and didn’t at all associate them with mainstream Christian thought or belief. That was a relief.

Daniel – thanks for comment and the thoughts.

With that said, i am confused by some people’s reactions to them. What gets me worried is their logic (what little i could find in their hate) sounds really familiar to what i have heard many people say here in Searcy and at Harding. Mainly dealing with Gays and lesbians. I have never heard a professor of Harding say stuff like this, but i have heard many students and residents of Searcy talk like this. These same people have deep problems with the WBC. Maybe there are some things that the some people don’t really have a problem with his logic but how he says it, and where he decides to say it, (like fallen soliders funerals)

I have a problem with both what he says and how he says it.

Any ways…have you been able to get a read on whether others (especially the ones arguing with the WBC’s) associate the WBC with the rest of Christianity?

So sad…

Rex

But I know this won’t happen. And it’s why they will keep successfully doing what they are doing and getting exactly what they want.