"

Sweden=

The legal actions taken by the Swedish royal family is according to the article in SvD not for his comments about Sweden in general, but for his comments about the royal family per se, and then especially his comments about princess Madeleine claiming she being indecent. 

Out of curiosity - does anyone know what these creatures (I won't have them in the same category as us humans) at WBC make of the United Nations? I can imagine they'll hate it, as they seem to hate everything in the universe, but it would be interesting to know...

I completely agree with the guy above me, but as this is an encyclopedia, why do we have to start an article about a schurch off with ""hate group""?

Perhaps because these are a group of people who rejoyce when thousands of children die in terrible tragedies and come to funerals to yell vial things at the loved ones of the people that fought for their rights. What the hell should we start it off with? This is a local church that has very good after-school programs? 

Hatred of Islam and muslims, however despicable, is not racism, and neither is hatred of Catholics or Catholicism.  In general the racism section is pretty weak.  There is plenty bad to be said about Phelps without bringing the allegation that he uses the word ""nigger.""  

Nice work.  Much better. I removed the NPOV tag. 

This article could be accused of not quite attaining NPOV, but it is clear that the writers have made an attempt to see this ridiculous crusade from both sides that is nothing short of heroic.  Patrick Beverley, 15 August 2005

Former Members of Westboro Baptist Church

The article has been updated with the following:

""George Stutzman, Theresa Davis, Chris Davis, Karl Hockenbarger, Bill Hockenbarger and his wife, James Hockenbarger and Joshua Phelps-Roper are no longer members of the Westboro Baptist Church.""

Where did this information come from? The Hockenbargers have been members of the church for a long time. I believe Chris Davis is married to Rebekah Phelps-Davis, one of Fred Phelps' children. His leaving the church would mean that he and Rebekah are no longer together. Joshua is one of the children of church spokesperson Shirley Phelps-Roper. His leaving would probably mean that he no longer has a relationship with his parents. (As Dorothea Bird once said: ""If you're in, you're in. If you're out, you're out.)

Hate group

Any chance of this article having a further early emphasis on it being a recognised hate group?

Lies

The westboro baptist CULT disgrace me. They hate catholics because they aparantly abuse children and are homosexuals. This is absolute lies and heavily offensive. The fact that they make up so much lies and how there actions are contradicted within the bible should be given more attention. Anyone agree?

Appearance

I remember an appearance by a woman and her children on the Howard Stern show... they were members of the Westboro Church, and in the few minutes I watched one thing that the woman said struck me as an interesting point: ""I don't hate fags, God hates fags,"" or something to that effect.  And yes, Fred Phelps mentioned this subject in an April 2003 interview with BlackTable.com: (Here's the URL: -  08:56, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC))

Article structure
I started some sections to give the article more structure, and made other indicated changes. - 08:15, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Comment
On a similar note, should we change references to this group from ""church"" to ""organization?""  I understand the name is Westboro Baptist Church, however for accuracy sake they are not really a ""church."" 

This church praises dead Swedes
A friend gave me this. Copy and paste this link in to your webbrowser otherwise it won't work http://data.4channel.org/p/src/1104484357896.gif I don't know of its validity. If somebody want to add this to the article, go ahead. If you can't download the image: It's basically a flier by the church that praises the presumed 2000 deaths of Swedes in the recent asian tsunami. As a Swedish citizen I find it highly offensive that goes beyond words, so it would be impossible for me to write an  unbiased addition to the article regarding this. Thanks,  11:29, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 ""Criticism"" section should be expanded further 

I added a bit to it