Westboro Baptist Church and Shooting Protests

After the shooting in Connecticut, Westboro Baptist Church has decided to picket the burial ceremonies (according to this MSN article).  In response, a petition has been created to declare the church as a hate group with the White House. And this petition seems to be gaining support quickly.

So what is a "hate group"?  If this petition is passed, what impacts could this have?

According to uslegal.com, the definition is:  "Hate speech is a communication that carries no meaning other than the expression of hatred for some group, especially in circumstances in which the communication is likely to provoke violence. It is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and the like. Hate speech can be any form of expression regarded as offensive to racial, ethnic and religious groups and other discrete minorities or to women."

(And this site now makes me question how often legal definitions are changed, as well as what legal processes are if the hate group is declared. If anybody knows, please send me the information.)

Based on the definition and the open hate of the group, it appears the group can be determined a hate group.  For years the activist church group has picketing military funerals and mass shooting locations such as the move theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado.  The group is also known for actively protesting homosexuals, Islam, etc.  The Westboro Baptist Church admits (and almost brags) about the signs that will be used during pickets - calling other preachers whores and proclaiming "God hates" so-and-so. 


If this petition is recognized by the White House, Westboro Baptist Church would be added to a list next to the Ku Klux Klan, White Aryan Resistance, and even the Nation of Islam (list per this website).  The Southern Poverty Law Center states that after 2000, the number of hate groups has risen and more astonishingly by 755% during the first three years after President Obama was elected.

This brings up questions:  what happens if the church is determined to be a hate group?  Will that stop their actions?  Will the media stop reporting on them?

By comparing Westboro Baptist Church to other groups it would be lumped with, answers begin to emerge at what may happen.  The group will be monitored by the government and media coverage will eventually die down; but unfortunately, it is a slippery slope of legal rights: the rights of the church's "victims" to live in peace and the church rights to freedom of speech.

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Note:  I do not endorse the actions of Westboro Baptist Church.  Any links regarding the church are for further reading and information, and for you to know where my information is coming from.