page_title: Westboro Baptist Church
section_title: Parodies
hierarchical_section_title: Westboro Baptist Church / Responses / Parodies
caption_attribution_description: English: Westboro Baptist Church Absurdist Counter-Protestor May 2009
context_page_description: Westboro Baptist Church is an American church known for its use of inflammatory hate speech, especially against LGBT+ people, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, atheists, Muslims, Jews, Mormons, U.S. soldiers and politicians. Multiple sources describe it as a hate group and the WBC is monitored as such by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. The church has been involved in actions against gay people since at least 1991, when it sought a crackdown on homosexual activity at Gage Park six blocks northwest of the church. In addition to conducting anti-gay protests at military funerals, the organization pickets celebrity funerals and public events. Protests have also been held against Jews and Catholics, and some protests have included WBC members stomping on the American flag or flying the flag upside down on a flagpole. The church also has made statements such as "thank God for dead soldiers", "God blew up the troops", and "God hates America". The church has faced several accusations of brainwashing and has been criticised as a cult.
context_section_description: A slogan commonly invoked at the counter protests is "God hates figs". Parodying the WBC all-capitals "God hates fags" signs, the counter-protest signs often invoke a passage in the Biblical book of Matthew to justify the claim about God and his feelings about figs. The signs have been noted at counter-protests at the University of Chicago; in Spartanburg, South Carolina; and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as at the non-WBC-themed Rally to Restore Sanity. The use of these satirical signs has been praised by the ACLU and others.
  Documentation given out at various counter-protests cite biblical verses in which Jesus says that none should eat the fruit of a fig tree (Mark 11:12–14), in which Jesus causes a fig tree to wither (Matthew 21:18–20), and in which God promises, as a punishment, to make someone like bad figs (Jeremiah 29:17). These are genuine citations, but are not the sole mentions of figs in the Bible.
  Other sites and organizations have parodied the slogans of the Westboro Baptist Church, including God Hates Fred Phelps, God Hates Bags, and God Hates Shrimp. The Cooper family in Kevin Smith's 2011 film Red State was reportedly inspired by the Westboro Baptist Church.
caption: Counter-protestor standing in front of WBC at Brown University in May 2009.
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