How does westboro baptist church get money

She has allowed her children to step on an American flag during protests. The WBC uses tactics like these to win media attention and spread its message. Children in the Phelps family are raised in the church's beliefs, and their upbringing offers them few opportunities to integrate into mainstream society.

It is common to see young children from the Phelps family at WBC pickets, often holding the group's hateful signs. These children casually use the words "f--" and "dyke" in interviews, and the older children report having no close friends at school. The Phelps family raises its children to hold hateful and upsetting views, and to believe that all people not in WBC will go to hell.

The tenets of WBC are so strict that no other churches are taken to be legitimate. The children quickly grow alienated in school and in society, leading them to build relationships almost exclusively within the family. This helps to explain why nine of Fred Phelps' 13 children have remained members of the church.

Fred Phelps and his small congregation provide WBC's funding; the group neither solicits nor accepts outside donations. In addition to this income, the church makes money by winning or settling civil lawsuits involving the church. During the s, the group sued Topeka multiple times for failing to provide sufficient protection during its protests. Because the Phelps family represents WBC in court, they can put the fees they win towards supporting the church. As of , several WBC members worked for the state , providing an additional income stream.

Margie Phelps was even awarded "Kansas Correctional Association Employee of the Quarter" in late — this despite her arrest at a protest at a dedication ceremony for the Brown v. CNN -- The father of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church says an order to pay the protesters' legal costs in a civil claim is nothing less than a "slap in the face.

Matthew Snyder, was killed in action in Iraq in Members of the fundamentalist church based in Topeka, Kansas, appeared outside Snyder's funeral in in Westminster, Maryland, carrying signs reading "You're going to hell," "God hates you" and "Thank God for dead soldiers. Among the teachings of the church, which was founded in by pastor Fred Phelps, is the belief that God is punishing the United States for "the sin of homosexuality" through events such as soldiers' deaths.

Margie Phelps, the daughter of Fred Phelps and the attorney representing the church in its appeals, also said the money that the church receives from Snyder will be used to finance demonstrations. But she also said that the order was a consequence of his decision to sue the church over the demonstration.

Snyder and his attorneys have engaged the legal system; there are some rules to that legal engagement," said Phelps, a member of Westboro who says she has participated in more than protests of military funerals.

Subscriber Account active since. The controversial Westboro Baptist Church might be in for a big payday if they decide to sue the city of Charleston, South Carolina, for its temporary ban on protests during the funeral services for the nine church goers who were killed last week at Emanuel AME Church.

WBC announced on Twitter over the weekend that they will likely picket the funerals of those killed in the hate crime shooting, which is not surprising since the Kansas-based church has a record of showing up at virtually every controversial funeral and event, feeding off national anger and admittedly the media attention it gives them.

What is surprising is that they might profit financially from their protests by suing the city of Charleston. The group has become proficient at filling its coffers through litigation against those who violate their constitutional rights.

On Tuesday, the Charleston city council voted to ban protests near memorial services for the next 60 days. The city passed the prohibition once the WBC announced plans to picket the funerals.

They keep those costs down by traveling by vans whenever possible. So how do they afford that? This document is an archived copy of an older ADL report and may not reflect the most current facts or developments related to its subject matter. The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church WBC is a small virulently homophobic, anti-Semitic hate group that regularly stages protests around the country, often several times a week.

WBC has no official affiliation with mainstream Baptist organizations. While WBC members have protested at Jewish institutions over the years, such institutions were not a m ajor focus for the group until April Since then, WBC has targeted dozens of Jewish institutions around the country, from Israeli consulates to synagogues to Jewish community centers, distributing anti-Semitic fliers to announce planned protests at these sites.

WBC has also been sending volumes in some cases dozens over the course of a week of faxes and emails with anti-Semitic and anti - gay messages to various Jewish institutions and individuals. In addition, in April , the group began mailing a virulently anti - Semitic DVD to Jewish organizations and leaders. Other WBC targets include schools the group deems to be accep ting of homosexuality; Catholic, Lutheran, and other Christian denominations that WBC feels are heretical; and funerals for people murdered or killed in accidents like plane crashes and for American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, a tactic the gro up started in Additionally, the group has tried to stage protests in foreign countries.

British government officials barred the group from entering the country. The group made it to Canada in August , where they picketed the funeral of a young man who was the victim of a brutal murder on a Greyhound bus, which was national news in that country. Authorities there reportedly tried to prevent the group from entering their country, but the WBC claims it was able to evade Canadian border patrol agents to stage the protest.

For this reason, the group directs its efforts at events that have attracted heavy news coverage, like the deaths of soldiers killed in wars or the victims of well-publicized accidents, or at venues, such as high schools, which are likely to generate large counter-protests and community outrage. The group also announces plans to picket at locations abroad many in locations WBC is not likely to b e to travel to, such as Sri Lanka, or cannot travel to, such as Great Britain, where the government has formally banned members of the group from entering in the hopes of generating foreign press coverage.

Anytime we get the word out there that we are a doomed country - a doomed generation it's a good thing. The group quickly gained national media attention for the practice and, to date, 41 states and the federal government have enacted legislation that attempts to limit it.

The constitutionality of these laws, on both freedom of speech and freedom of religion grounds, has been challenged in four states, with mixed results. However, in December of that year WBC won a preliminary injunction prohibiting the state of Missouri from enforcing its law. In addition, in October , a federal jury in Baltimore, Maryland, found members of the WBC guilty of violating a right to privacy and intentionally inflicting emotional distress against the family of Matthew Snyder, a Marine who was killed in Iraq in In September , a federal appeals court threw out the verdict entirely.

On March 2, the Supreme Court ruled 8 - 1 in favor of the WBC, stressing that the group was protected by the First Amendment and its free speech rights to debate public issues.

The Court also noted that the WBC had obeyed directions from local officials, maintained a distance from the church where the Snyder funeral was held, and did not disrupt the funeral service. Another case revolved around charges for flag desecration made against Shirley Phelps-Roper in Nebraska in June In February , a Nebraska state judge denied her challenge to the constitutionality of the flag desecration law.

At the end of December , Phelps-Roper filed a federal lawsuit against more than a dozen Nebraska state officials, including the governor, attorney general, and judg es involved in the ongoing flag desecration case. Her lawsuit challenges a number of state and city laws, among them those that deal with flag desecration and funeral pickets. Phelps-Roper alleges that these laws infringed upon her right to free speech and are being applied in a discriminatory fashion.

Two months later, in September, a federal judge overturned the Nebraska law. Before it began picketing the funerals of soldiers, the Westboro Baptist Church WBC was best known for picketing the funerals of gay people or those they perceived to be gay. All else about Matt is trivial and irrelevant. While the WBC has picketed the gay community at hundreds of events nationwide, most of the individuals the church has targeted are not homosexual.

In , nine Federal court judges filed a disciplinary complaint charging him and six of his family members, all attorneys, with making false accusations against them. The Phelps family fought the complaint but lost and, in , Fred Phelps agreed to not practice law in Federal court in exchange for the Federal judges allowing the other members of his family to continue practicing in Federal court.

The rest of the people who claim to be Jews aren't, and they are nothing more than typical, impenitent sinners, who have no Lamb. As evidence of their apostacy [sic], the vast majority of Jews support fags. Of course, there are Jews who still believe Gods l aw, but most of them have even departed from that. Yes, the Jews killed the Lord Jesus