Desecration, Moral Boundaries, and the Movement of Law: The Case of Westboro Baptist Church

Abstract

Using participant observation, in-depth interviews, and legislative histories, we examine Westboro Baptist Church, a religious group infamous for homophobic rhetoric and funeral protests. Employing cultural and interactionist perspectives that focus on the semiotics of death, the sacred, and desecration, we outline how Westboro’s activities purposively violate deeply held signifiers of moral order through language, while simultaneously respecting extant laws of behavior. This strategy, in conjunction with the political profitability of opposing the group, explains why the group’s activism triggered extensive legal disputes and modifications at multiple levels of governance. Westboro’s actions and use of symbols—and those of others against the group—lay bare multiple threads in the sacred cultural fabric of American society.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Jared Maier and Jeremy Rhodes for conducting interviews. Thanks to Scott Draper, Ashley Palmer, and Sam Stroope for sharing their observations and fieldnotes after visiting the group. Thanks for Melissa Schrift, Bill N. Duncan, and Stephen R. McAllister for sharing their knowledge of the literatures on blood sacrifice, mortuary desecration, and funeral protest laws, respectively. An earlier version of this study was presented at the 2012 Association for the Sociology of Religion meeting in Denver, CO.

Notes

¹ These questions address the group’s internal motivation and the external societal reaction to the group’s actions, respectively.

² The police were called to take Phelps away for his persistence and he was suspended from school for a week. He was undeterred, prompting the administration to send him to the school psychiatrist. Phelps berated and “psychoanalyzed” her instead. “Gloated an admiring coed … ‘Just because you’re religious doesn’t mean you have to be crazy’” (1951:57).

³ The group claims to be a Primitive Baptist church, but Primitive Baptists (not surprisingly) do not claim the group. Further, Fred Phelps was not baptized by a primitive Baptist minister, a prerequisite for being considered Primitive Baptist (Barrett-Fox 2010:36).

⁴ For a general overview of the church’s background and activities, see the reports compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

⁵ Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2012. “Religion in the News: Islam and Politics Dominate Religion Coverage in 2011.” (http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Issues/Government/Religionandthenews2011.pdf). Pew Research Center. 2011. “As Gas Prices Spike, More See Economic News as Bad.” (http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/713.pdf). All Web links listed in the footnotes throughout the article were active when last accessed on February 20, 2014.

⁶ Cases where religious groups are popularly labeled as “cults” represent a distinctive type of “stigma contest” (Schur 1980) between the group and representatives of the general public (Ayella 1990). Groups losing these contests are subject to a variety of interventionist measures, depending on the perceived threat posed to conventional society.

⁷ There were some minor differences in interviewees’ views of God by age and gender. Younger members were more likely than older members to think God is “critical” and reserves judgment of sinners for the afterlife. Younger members also saw God as slightly more engaged in the world. Regarding gender, WBC women were more likely than men to say God was concerned with their personal wellbeing, that “God often performs miracles which defy the laws of nature,” and to perceive God as “critical.”

⁸ We use a capitalized masculine pronoun to refer to God in text where it represents WBC’s views, as they decidedly see God as an omnipotent male deity. On the importance of perceptions of God’s gender, see Whitehead (2012).

⁹ Details on the collection procedures for the Baylor Religion Survey are outlined in Bader and colleagues (2007). For details on the 2007 survey, see http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/BAYLORW2.asp.

¹⁰ Dannemeyer (1987:21194) vowed to combat “normaphobes” advocating for gay rights, saying “I commend the following article to the American public so they can read for themselves the extent of homosexual militancy” (also see Dannemeyer 1989a, 1989b). The narrative of the “homosexual manifesto” outlines a conspiracy theory of secret, then ultimately overt domination. WBC is not alone in their use of the text for the purposes of propaganda, as it periodically surfaces in fear-mongering about homosexuality.

¹¹ Verbatim text of the sermon in question, like all sermons delivered at WBC, is publically available on the group’s website. Although we do not explore it further here, the perceived role of an active Satanic force is also a notable element of WBC’s belief system.

¹² We interviewed a professor who had taught multiple members of the church in college courses. He noted that they were typically among the best students in terms of attendance, attentiveness, and study habits; and also that they were skilled at learning what professors “wanted to hear,” while maintaining their distinctive view of the world.

¹³ For example, see the commentary by K. Ryan Jones about his documentary Fall From Grace, filmed while he was a student at the University of Kansas.

¹⁴ The “Patriot Guard” is a group of motorcycle riders that regularly counter-protests WBC events.

¹⁵ For more details, see http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/neb-officials-agree-flag-desecration-law-is-unconstitutional. Shirley immediately cited this case to the arresting officers. They persisted, but soon realized the state law could not be enforced. She was released later that night.

¹⁶ However, the city of Topeka and the state of Kansas passed many laws in the early 1990s designed to stifle the efforts of WBC in various ways, including limits on protesting churches and sending faxes.

¹⁷ The average number of cosponsors for a bill in the 109th Congress was 15.9. The number of cosponsors for the bill was greater than 99.3% of bills introduced during this Congress. Data were retrieved from http://congressionalbills.org. The dissenters included Ron Paul (R–Texas), a staunch libertarian, and Barney Frank (D–Massachusetts), an openly gay, longtime progressive congressional representative. Both opposed the bill on the grounds of civil liberties. In 2012 Barack Obama signed a wide-ranging bill addressing veterans’ issues that included an extension of the time restrictions from one hour before and after to two (see H. R. 1627—34: § 2413). Text of the bill is available at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1627enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1627enr.pdf.

¹⁸ Although much of the rhetoric and focus has been and remains on military funerals, most state laws prohibit protesting at funerals in general.

¹⁹ Sanford routinely vetoed legislation from his own party based on libertarian economic principles, once bringing pigs to the House chamber to represent “pork” spending. In the case of the funeral law, he applied libertarian logic to social concerns and civil liberties. See http://www.wistv.com/global/Story.asp?s=1895905. Similarly a bill that passed the California legislature restricting funeral protests to 1,000 feet was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown, a longtime Democrat (Egelko 2011). See http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Gov-Jerry-Brown-vetoes-ban-on-funeral-protests-2310547.php. The law was passed and signed by the governor the following year, with 300 feet as the specified distance.

²⁰ The recent death of the group’s patriarch does raise the possibility of changes to the group’s tactics, although this remains to be seen. As of this writing the group's protests have continued unabated.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph O. Baker

Joseph O. Baker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at East Tennessee State University and a senior research associate for the Association of Religion Data Archives. His research focuses on cultural sociology, particularly in the areas of religion, secularism, perceived knowledge, and deviance. His research has been published in more than a dozen peer-reviewed journals, and he is an editorial board member for Sociology of Religion. He is author of Paranormal America and his latest book, American Secularism, will be available in 2015 from New York University Press.

Christopher D. Bader

Christopher D. Bader is a Professor of Sociology at Chapman University and affiliated with the Institute for Religion, Economics and Culture (IRES). He was principal investigator of the first two waves of the Baylor Religion Survey, a nationwide survey of U.S. religious beliefs. He is Associate Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives (http://www.theArda.com), an on-line archive of religion survey data funded by the Templeton Foundation and Lilly Foundation and supported by Penn State University and Chapman. He is the author of two books, America’s Four Gods and Paranormal America, and has published, to date, 35 articles and chapters in the fields of sociology, deviance, criminology, the sociology of religion and education.

Kittye Hirsch

Kittye Hirsch is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at East Tennessee State University. Her recent Master’s thesis in applied sociology examined the effectiveness of evidence-based strategies to reduce recidivism rates among target populations. Her research interests include racial inequality, social stratification, and penology.