GOD HATES AMBIGUITY: A FRAMING ANALYSIS OF FLIERS FROM THE WESTBORO
BAPTIST CHURCH
Terran Chad Odell
B.A., California State University, Long Beach, 2008
THESIS
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
COMMUNICATION STUDIES
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
SPRING
2011
GOD HATES AMBIGUITY: A FRAMING ANALYSIS OF FLIERS FROM THE WESTBORO
BAPTIST CHURCH
A Thesis
by
Terran Chad Odell
Approved by:
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Dr. Jacqueline A. Irwin
__________________________________, Second Reader
Dr. Michele S. Foss-Snowden
__________________________________, Third Reader
Dr. John L. Williams
____________________________
Date
ii
Student: Terran Chad Odell
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format
manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for
the thesis.
__________________________, Graduate Coordinator
Dr. Michele S. Foss-Snowden
Department of Communication Studies
iii
___________________
Date
Abstract
of
GOD HATES AMBIGUITY: A FRAMING ANALYSIS OF FLIERS FROM THE WESTBORO
BAPTIST CHURCH
by
Terran Chad Odell
This thesis looks at the Westboro Baptist Church as an example of an organization that
uses hate speech as a form of protest rhetoric to send messages about American societal
problems. The critical question this thesis is concerned with is: How does the Westboro
Baptist Church frame its core message in its fliers to ensure its transmission to a mass
audience? This thesis will employ a framing analysis of six fliers released by the
Westboro Baptist Church in January 2010. The methodology of framing analysis is
based in Entman’s (1993) four aspects of framing. This study argues that framing is the
mechanism through which organizations that use controversial protest rhetoric and hate
speech can ensure their core message is kept intact when communicating that message to
an audience.
_______________________, Committee Chair
Dr. Jacqueline A. Irwin
_______________________
Date
iv
PREFACE
The Westboro Baptist Church is an organization that is staunchly opposed to the
gay community. As will be explored in this study, their core belief is that God is fighting
against America due to this country’s complacency in opposing homosexuals. As a
member of the gay community, I am in a unique position to study this church by nature of
my personal perspective. In academic scholarship, being objective in our studies and
analyses, especially when dealing with controversial groups such as the Westboro Baptist
Church, is of the utmost importance. In holding this tenet of objectivity in the highest
regard, disclosing my sexual identity is my way to remain transparent and open.
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND DEDICATION
Quite simply, if Dr. Irwin had not pushed and encouraged me to complete my
master’s degree I would not have finished. Upon moving to the Bay Area for work, I
surely would have let my academic progress up until that point go to waste. But through
some coaxing, handholding, and expressions of faith in me, you have made writing this
acknowledgment page on my completed thesis a reality. Saying thank you does not
really cover it, for I am beyond grateful. You have been an incredible advisor, and
friend. Another individual who has fought for me throughout my master’s program is Dr.
Foss-Snowden. You afforded me many opportunities, helped my confidence when I was
unsure, and stood up for me when others sought to bring me down. Thank you for all you
have done. The final piece of the puzzle was Dr. John Williams. Your patience,
feedback, and guidance have been essential to the success of this thesis. Thank you for
help throughout this process.
My small cohort of peers helped the master’s coursework go by faster and easier
than I anticipated. Thank you all for your support, your encouragement, and your
determination. And of course many thanks go to the ComS office staff members who
were consistently helpful and always cheerful while guiding me through the logistics of
the academic red tape.
To my parents, sister, and friends I must send a great amount of gratitude. Your
support, guidance, and love have always been appreciated throughout my endeavors,
including this master’s program. I love you all, and I thank you for always being there.
vi
And from my boyfriend I graciously acknowledge an immense amount of
patience and encouragement. Bryan, you have been with me from day one of this
master’s program – through the late-night classes, the grading of speeches, the lost
weekends to studying and writing, the headaches I gave you with my meltdowns and
complaints, and making you proofread of my papers of academic mumbo jumbo. Your
love and support made this possible, and I dedicate this thesis to you with all my love.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Preface ...................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgments and Dedication .......................................................................................... vi
List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... ix
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
Protest Rhetoric: An Overview .................................................................................... 2
Hate Speech: An Introduction ....................................................................................... 6
Framing: A Summary .................................................................................................. 9
The Westboro Baptist Church: A Brief History......................................................... 12
Methodology ............................................................................................................... 16
Rationale .................................................................................................................... 18
Organization of the Study .......................................................................................... 20
2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .................................................................................. 21
The Function of Protest Rhetoric ............................................................................... 22
Hate Speech and the First Amendment ...................................................................... 27
The Westboro Baptist Church..................................................................................... 32
Message Framing ....................................................................................................... 47
3. ANALYSIS ....................................................................................................................... 53
4. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 88
Limitations .................................................................................................................. 88
Discussion .................................................................................................................. 90
Future Studies ............................................................................................................ 93
References ............................................................................................................................... 97
viii
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
1.
Figure 1 January 13, 2010…………….………………………………………… 55
2.
Figure 2 January 14, 2010 …………….……………………………..…………… 60
3.
Figure 3 January 15, 2010 ………………….…………………….….…….…… 66
4.
Figure 4 January 16, 2010 …………….………………….…………………….. 71
5.
Figure 5 January 28, 2010 ………….…………………….…………………….. 77
6.
Figure 6 January 31, 2010……………….……………………………......…….. 83
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1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
An improvised explosive device killed Albert Snyder’s son, Matthew, only two
months after he arrived in Iraq in 2006 with the U.S. Marines (Weil, 2006). This story is
not unlike those of many other military personnel who have perished as part of Operation
Iraqi Freedom. The funeral of Matthew Snyder in Westminster, Maryland on March 10,
2006 was protested by a small group of Kansans from the Westboro Baptist Church
(WBC). They held signs saying, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and “God Hates
America” (Davis, 2006). Even this is not unique to the Snyder family. The WBC has
become well known for picketing the funerals of fallen soldiers whom they believe are
being punished by God for America’s tolerance of homosexuality (Anti-Defamation
League, n.d.; Drain & Phelps, 2000; Jones, 2007; O’Connor & Theroux, 2007; Westboro
Baptist Church, 2010b). What is relatively unique to the Snyder family is that Albert
Snyder has fought back against the WBC and, on appeals, the case worked its way up to
the Supreme Court. On PBS NewsHour, Snyder shared his pain:
The Phelps targeted me and my family, by name, and they took away the last
chance I had to bury my son. My only chance to bury Matt… This is a funeral
we’re talking about for God’s sake. What kind of society do we want if we can’t
even bury our dead in peace? Nobody in the history of this country has ever done
this at funerals… is nothing sacred?” (PBS NewsHour, 2010, 0.13min).
In March of 2011, the Supreme Court decided in a decision of 8-1 that the protesting
activities of the WBC are indeed protected by the First Amendment no matter how
painful and unsavory the speech may be (Kendall, 2011). The WBC, in its rampant and
aggressive quest to have their message heard, has negatively impacted the lives of many
2
American such as the Snyder family (Kendall, 2011; O’Connor & Theroux, 2007). From
the church’s point of view, they’re simply exercising their First Amendment right to
protest, and the Supreme Court agreed. Their protest rhetoric, which is considered hate
speech by the Anti-Defamation League (n.d.) and the Southern Poverty Law Center
(2010), is the starting point for this study.
Protest Rhetoric: An Overview
Prior to the 1960s, rhetoricians and communication scholars focused on public
speech as a rhetorical area of study (Jensen, 2001). The social movement phenomena of
the 1960s spurred communication scholars into trying to grasp the nature of social
movements and specifically protest rhetoric (Jensen, 2001). The sharp increase of social
movements and public protest by minorities, women, gays, and religious groups created a
need within the discipline to study and understand these communicative acts (Jensen,
2001).
In the quest to have a message heard, groups and individuals have at their disposal
an array strategies. Haiman (1972) noted that the civil rights movement brought to the
forefront a variety of forms of protest such as mass rally, folk-songs, slogans, pickets, and
marches. But there are certainly less civil forms of protest; violence is certainly a way to
protest and convey a message, but as Gregg (1959) points out, nonviolent techniques
carry with them certain advantages. “The intelligent user of nonviolent resistance,”
Gregg wrote, “has for his help far greater total resources of energy and power than does
his violent opponent” (1959, p. 121). Gregg argues that while nonviolent means of
protest and expressing discontent are much slower than violent alternatives, history has
3
proven that nonviolence is a much more enduring force. The term nonviolence carries
with it a connotation of civility, however, these forms of nonviolent protest do not
necessarily mean they are without confrontation (Gregg, 1959). Many forms of protest
carry with them an innate nature of confrontation. Scott and Smith (1972) provide a
framework for defining confrontational protesting activities. These scholars indicate that
confront is a verb which means to stand or to come in front of:
Like many simple words it [confront] has been used in diverse contexts for varied
purposes and has developed complex meaning. Among these the most
interesting, and perhaps the strongest, is the sense of standing in front of a barrier
or a threat. This sense is especially apparent in the noun ‘confrontation’” (Scott
& Smith, 1972, p. 170).
Confrontational protest, therefore, carries with it the idea of physically standing in front
of, or up to, some sort of oppositional force. And this type of confrontation, Scott &
Smith argue, has a self-satisfying appeal: “Part of the attraction of confrontation is the
strong sense of success, so strong that it may be a can’t-lose strategy” (Scott & Smith,
1972, p. 176). So as certain protesting activities imply a confrontational nature, it is
simple enough to argue that protest rhetoric is a very powerful tool for conveying a
message to an intended (or unintended) recipient (Altheide & Gilmore, 1972; Turner,
1969).
Protest rhetoric as a specific area of study must first be defined. Gregg (1971)
says that before even attempting to define protest rhetoric specifically, a definition of
rhetoric in general must be established. Gregg notes that rhetoric can be looked at as a
“situation wherein a speaker undertakes to produce a message for the purpose of affecting
the perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of a listener or group of listeners” (1971,
4
p. 72). Other scholars echo this point by saying that any public protest is inherently
persuasive (Gustainis & Hahn, 1988).
Public protest can also be viewed a type of public
performance. Fuoss (1993) argues that performances that serve to contest something do
so not because the performances themselves contain the conflict but because they are
representations of a larger conflict. These types of performances are built to have their
representation of a conflict spill over into view of a broader audience. So in considering
the WBC, their pickets are essentially performances, and these pickets may or may not
contain the conflict, but are instead representations of the larger conflict. And since these
performances take place in public arenas, there is a certain amount of necessity to be paid
to the time, place, and type of protest.
Haiman (1972) indicates that there is some criticism of protest activities because
there is an undertone that there is prescribed time and place for protesting activities to
transpire. Protest may not be tolerated if it, for example, invades the privacy of others.
“The problem associated with the time, place, and manner of protest,” Haiman wrote,
“must now be addressed together with the possibility that countervailing interests such as
privacy, convenience, or the safety and welfare of the community may justify some
curtailments of the rhetoric of the streets” (1972, p. 138). In addition to the when and
where, there are also some indications that what is being said is of concern. Certain
obscene and profane language can fall by the wayside if audiences determine the rhetoric
to be inappropriate. Bosmajian (1972c) addressed the use of obscenity and profane
language as part of protest rhetoric. Obscenity, he argues, has appeal for a couple
reasons, including that the obscenities yield to the protestor the ability to label their
5
adversaries, and that obscenities are wrapped in a provoking nature that can prompt some
type of response. Additionally, it could be argued that obscenity has the power to grab
attention more readily. In addition to obscene speech’s place as valuable form of protest
rhetoric, the role of the heckler also has its worth. Bosmajian (1972a) cites that those
individuals who interrupt, speak out, and otherwise heckle speakers are blessings that are
not fully appreciated. Bosmajian states that although it may be easier to want to silence
the heckler, doing so would have adverse effects on the functioning of a proper
democratic society. “In the political and religious arena,” he wrote, “what we least need
are silent, passive, submissive, and inert audiences accepting without protest the deceits,
evasions, and abuses of speakers addressing them. Such audiences contribute little to the
‘happy cacophony of democracy’” (Bosmajian, 1972a, p. 232). Although some people
may not agree with or like the style, subject matter, time, or place of protesting activities,
they serve a function in a democracy. But what happens when protest rhetoric is laden
with the obscene and profane language as Bosmajian addressed? What happens when the
protest rhetoric inflicts some type of harm upon a certain group of persons? Not
surprisingly, there are some forms of protest rhetoric that stray from the peaceful and err
on the side of hate. A style of protest that is used by some organizations and people is
that of hate speech. Hate speech, for the purposes of this paper, is considered to be a
tactic or strategy within the realm of protest rhetoric. As a function of certain protest
rhetoric, then, hate speech is a more extreme form that seeks a specific set of goals.
6
Hate Speech: An Introduction
Hate really is, as children are told by their parents growing up, a very strong
word. In continuing Gregg’s (1972) discussion of violent and nonviolent protest, he
addresses the concept of hate:
Hate may be described as a sort of deferred or thwarted anger. The hated person
or force is too strong to be removed or destroyed, and yet not strong enough to
cause fight or abject submission. Therefore, the person puts up with it, wishing
all the time to destroy or harm it but not quite daring to do so, waiting for an
opportunity to weaken or destroy it, but restraining his anger from blazing forth
into open combat (Gregg, 1972, p. 3).
While Gregg’s definition of hate is laden with destructive aspects, the idea of hate speech
is very combative in nature. As with any concept, it is noted by Walker (1994) that there
is no universal definition of hate speech. Hate speech is described by Whillock (1995) as
a rhetorical stratagem likened to a trick of war to deceive and outwit the enemy. She
said:
Rather than seeking to win adherence through superior reasoning, hate speech
seeks to move an audience by creating a symbolic code for violence. Its goals are
to inflame the emotions of followers, denigrate the designated out-of-class, inflict
permanent and irreparable harm to the opposition, and ultimately conquer
(Whillock, 1995, p. 32).
Hate appeals are usually seated in cultural and historical stereotypes and thus are able to
align with the thought-processes of multiple members of a society (Whillock, 1995).
Delgado and Stefancic (1997) argue that racist speech and hate speech are tactically
coordinated so that any one occurrence of hate speech seems innocent enough, but that in
combination with others serves to crush the spirits of victims. Other scholars note this
rather damaging and dominating nature of hate speech. In the introduction to their book
7
Hate Speech, Whillock and Slayden (1995) state that the use of hate speech by a rhetor is
an overt attempt to dominate the opposition by rhetorical force. Those who spout hate
speech continue to do so because hate speech has an unfortunate reputation of working.
Whillock (1995) states that hate appeals work initially because they are flashy and attract
media attention, and the emotionally charged nature of hate can push toward an endsolution to on ongoing issue. At the same time, the opposite can be argued in that hate
speech is extreme and does not work. Some expressions of hate (particularly those that
are extreme) get dismissed by the general public as being abnormal and labeled as actions
that would not be taken by an ordinary (and rational) citizen (Goldberg, 1995). This
double-edged sword nature of hate speech can be illustrated by Muir’s (1995) study of
the rhetorical extremism in the anti-abortion movement of the early 1990s. The hatefilled language used by members of the movement helped create a climate of violence.
For example, by screaming ‘murderer’ at abortion clinic doctors and telling women to not
kill their babies, the protestors used hate speech to achieve their goals (Rohlinger, 2002).
In most social movements, the extremists are the ones who get the most media attention
and cause polarization between those who wish to take on the issue or controversy in a
more moderate manner. At times, such extremism however can cause lead to decreased
credibility of the extremists (Muir, 1995).
No study of hate speech can be complete without addressing the overarching issue
of free speech that is so frequently studied by scholars. There are two ends of a
continuum when it comes to free speech and hate speech: those who advocate for the
protections of free speech (Bosmajian, 1972b, 1978; Heurmann & Church, 1997; Smith,
8
1995; Strossen, 1997; Walker, 1994), and those who advocate for the protection of the
recipients of hate speech (Calvert, 1997; Downing, 1999; Fish, 1994; Jensen & Arriola,
1995). As this is a very complicated issue, it is laden with grey area. The First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is fairly simple: “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” (U.S. Const.,
amend. I). These 45 words are at the heart of both the free speech and hate speech
debate. Schauer (1995) argues that there is a lack of free speech on the very subject of
free speech, and that until an open discussion can take place, nothing will be resolved.
While this may be true is some sense, there is certainly a lot of scholarly research on this
very subject. Given that this subject is a spectrum, it is important to recognize both ends
that could be harmed by either the unchecked reign of hate speech or the attempted
restriction of free speech (Lawrence, 1997). With hate speech and the First Amendment,
whether the middle ground or an extreme is adopted, recognizing that hate speech is used
as part of protest rhetoric and social movement is foundational to this study.
For better or worse, hate speech does exist in today’s society. Certain protest
groups use very structured and calculated tools to communicate their (hateful) messages.
Hate speech can be one of these very tools. In the context of this study, the Westboro
Baptists Church regularly disseminates fliers filled with hate speech as part of their
protest rhetoric. These fliers, besides using hate speech as a tactic to garner attention, use
the communication tool of framing to ensure their messages are not misinterpreted or
9
misunderstood. It is pertinent to this study to explore framing as communication
phenomenon in the realms of political communication and public relations.
Framing: A Summary
Framing is a tool used with various issues, controversies, and stories in a variety
of different ways (Benford & Snow; 2000; D’Angelo, 2002; Gamson, 1988; Gamson &
Modigliani, 1989; Nomai & Dionisopoulos, 2002). Gamson (1989) gives us the
definition that a frame is “a central organizing idea for making sense of relevant events
and suggesting what is at issue” (p. 157). Framing research is most often centered on
political issues and media coverage (Gordon & Tadlock, 2004; Nelson & Kinder, 1996).
A unifying frame typically holds different elements of an occurrence together (Gamson,
Croteau, Hoynes & Sasson, 1992). This frame is the basis of how something is
distributed to others. A frame can be a slant on an issue given in a press conference, or
the angle at which a news story is covered. “The point at which a story begins is very
much a question of how the issue is framed” (Gamson, et. al., 1992, p. 25).
Framing has an important impact on the recipient of information, and has the
ability to interact with people’s values and attitudes (Brewer & Gross, 2005; Henry &
Reyna, 2007; Nelson & Kinder, 1996; Nelson & Oxley, 1999). This is probably the most
important reason that framing is a phenomenon worthy of scholarly study. The way an
issue is framed has an impact on the attitudes people express or have towards that
particular issue and interacts with the values that people may previously hold to be true.
Given this impact, it is sometimes used in a negative way, such as when it is used as a
“rhetorical weapon in elites’ hands” (Nelson & Kinder, 1996, p. 1055). Nelson and
10
Kinder say, “the framing of issues – by partisan elites and mass media organizations –
shapes public understanding of the roots of contemporary problems and the merits of
alternative solutions” (1996, p. 1055). These scholars bring up two very important
issues, which will be expanded upon here: the people who do the framing, and the
public’s response to those frames. In order to frame an issue, an entity or person must be
in some sort of a capacity to disseminate information. This is typically done by political
organizations or mass media outlets (Carragee & Roefs, 2004; Gamson, et. al., 1992).
These types of organizations have the goals and means to typically reach a mass
audience. But the power of the framing does not stem simply from their mass
dissemination capabilities; it comes from the impact on the audience. The impact of
framing is seen when others communicate that information to a third party (Brewer,
2002), it impacts issue opinions (Nelson & Oxley, 1999), it affects public deliberation
(Brewer & Gross, 2005) or attitudes toward policies (Henry & Reynan, 2007). The act of
framing is usually done by those with the capacity to disseminate information, which in
the past were political organizations and mass media outlets (Gamson, et. al., 1992;
McLeod & Detenber, 1999; McLeod & Hertog, 1999). Today, with modern digital
media, anyone, including a small church in Kansas, can disseminate information fairly
easily. When an organization other than a mass media entity utilizes framing, a public
relations vantage point, as opposed to a mass media vantage point, provides some clarity
and elaboration on this topic. Specifically, Knight and Hallahan offer some insight into
how framing is of value in the field of public relations and interest groups.
11
Knight (1999) acknowledged that framing is a versatile tool in the realm of
political communication but argued that it has similar uses in the world of public
relations. Frames, whether adopted by the media for a news story or used to mediate
debate on a particular topic, have the potential “for achieving the advantageous win-win
solution” (p. 382). Knight writes that public relations practitioners frequently use
framing as they write news releases, but also posits that using framing is a way to “find
viable solutions to thorny social problems” (p. 396). Hallahan (1999) furthers the
argument that framing is useful in public relations by suggesting that there are seven
types of framing that exist: the framing of situations, attributes, choices, actions,
responsibilities, news, and – most important to this study – issues. Hallahan argues that
an issue frame deals with the dispute over the allocation of some sort of a resource or the
treatment or portrayal of groups in society. Furthermore he suggests that issues usually
involve some sort of debate within the public sphere that usually gets resolution within a
political arena (legislature, court, election, etc.).
Framing puts information into a context and establishes frames of reference so
people can evaluate information, comprehend meanings, and take action, if
appropriate. Indeed, the message must be imbued with sufficient clues so that
people can make sense of the message… Framing provides those clues (Hallahan,
1999, p. 224).
Providing clues and giving audiences a reference point from which to evaluate
information are aspects of framing that are particularly useful when it comes to interest
groups that are pushing a certain agenda (Reber & Berger, 2005; Terkildsen, Schnell &
Ling, 1998). The religious organization at the heart of this study has arguably mastered
the art of framing. The WBC frames their arguments in their fliers, pickets signs, and
12
protest rhetoric so well that the frame of their core message is frequently adopted by the
larger media. As Hallahan suggests, the WBC frames by putting their information into an
intended context so that readers can comprehend the information as the church intends.
Given that they have been protesting for decades and have faxed thousands of their fliers
to opinion leaders, their use of framing is nothing new. To understand how the WBC has
arrived at a point of skilled message framing first requires a look at how the church
started out, and the path the church and its leader have taken to be known as a prominent
hate group of the present day.
The Westboro Baptist Church: A Brief History
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), one of America’s most notorious hate groups, spoke
out against the WBC saying they repudiate the church’s activities (The Ku Klux Klan,
n.d.). When even the KKK thinks an organization crosses the line, it is easy to see why
the WBC of Topeka, Kansas has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law
Center (2001b). The history of the WBC cannot stand apart from the story of its leader,
Reverend Fred Phelps.
Fred Phelps was born in 1929 and was ordained a Baptist preacher at the young
age of 17 (Jones, 2007). Fred Phelps officially started the WBC in 1955, and there has
rarely been a Sunday since that Phelps has not preached to his congregation (Jones,
2007). The make-up of the current day congregation is largely that of the Phelps family –
some of his 13 children, and his subsequent grandchildren (Drain & Phelps, 2000;
O’Connor & Theroux, 2007; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001a). Despite the belief
that the WBC is made up entirely of the Phelps family, the church is not closed to
13
outsiders (Drain & Phelps, 2000; O’Connor & Theroux, 2007). Four of the Phelps’ 13
children have left the church at different points in their lives, influenced by Fred Phelps
and his psychological and physical abuse of them (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001b).
One of the most vocal estranged children, Nate Phelps, who now self-identifies as an
atheist and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, speaks
out against the WBC and his father calling the church a cult (Jones, 2007; Libin, 2010;
Melanson, 2008; Nate Phelps, 2009).
The church is often viewed as a group of hatemongering homophobes and antiSemites (Anti-Defamation League, n.d.), but the church is composed of very bright and
intelligent members. Even William Bunten, the mayor of Topeka, in the documentary
Fall from Grace, stated that all of the Phelps family members are bright capable people
who could contribute handily to their community, but instead have chosen to take a
different path (Jones, 2007). While the WBC is considered radical and typically stands
alone in defiance, they were joined by a Florida-based church, the Dove World Outreach
Center (DWOC), during one of their 2010 pickets (Pruner & Michin, 2010). The DWOC
said in a blog after the picket, “…when you speak out about what God hates, you will be
hated. We do not agree with all of Westboro’s methods, but we admire their
determination to find radical ways to preach the truth of the Bible, as we do” (Dove
World Outreach Center, 2010, para. 1). The WBC’s delivery may be unique, but the
church is hardly alone its anti-gay, anti-Semite viewpoints.
Since 1991, the main focus of Fred Phelps and his church has been picketing and
preaching. The church has become well known for picketing the funerals of fallen
14
soldiers and victims of anti-gay violence, centers of Jewish faith, government buildings,
gay-friendly schools and universities, etc. (Anti-Defamation League, n.d.). The church
members can be seen holding pickets signs that say “God Hates Fags”, “Thank God for
Dead Soldiers”, “God Hates America”, and much more. These types of pickets started in
1991 when the WBC started picketing outside Gage Park in their hometown of Topeka,
Kansas where gay men supposedly met for sex (Drain & Phelps, 2000). The Phelps had
become frustrated that the city of Topeka was not attempting to ban the gay men from the
park and subsequently made small picket signs and marched in a circle for so long that
the grass was trampled down into a round dirt path (Jones, 2007). They continued these
types of pickets even after an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded in a Phelps
family member’s front yard in 1995. Nearly a decade later, when American soldiers
began dying from IEDs in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the WBC took it as a sign
that God was punishing America for attacking the church back in 1995. The church feels
that soldiers killed by IEDs are a result of God punishing America for its tolerance of
homosexuality (Drain & Phelps, 2000; Jones, 2007; O’Connor & Theroux, 2007).
According to the church, they are the only people out preaching these truths to the
American public (Jones, 2007).
The WBC has a history and familiarity with the law. Fred Phelps received his law
degree in 1964 from Washburn University and had a very colorful law career before nine
federal judges signed a disciplinary complaint against him for false accusations against
the judges in 1985. In 1989, Fred Phelps agreed to stop practicing law (Drain & Phelps,
2000; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001a).
Prior to his disbarment, Fred Phelps
15
founded the Phelps Chartered Attorneys-At-Law, which is still in business today. The
firm is composed of five Phelps family members (Phelps-Chartered, 2003). Many of the
WBC’s pickets have landed the church with legal issues, for which they are wellprepared. The WBC has found itself in the center of First Amendment legal battles, and
the church’s right to exercise free speech has been backed by the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU, 2008). The largest lawsuit the church has faced is that of
Snyder v. Phelps. The WBC and Fred Phelps were sued by Albert Snyder, the father of a
soldier killed in Iraq whose funeral was protested by the WBC in March of 2006. A
lower court initially slapped the WBC with an $11 million fine (in what some believe
was an attempt to bankrupt the church) but on a series of appeals the case has worked its
way up to the Supreme Court (Anti-Defamation League, n.d.; Biskupic, 2010; Bravin &
Kendall, 2010; Simmons, 2007). On March 2, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court found in
favor of the WBC (Kendall, 2011).
At the end of the day, the WBC is trying to spread its message. According to the
Anti-Defamation League, “The primary goal of the Westboro Baptist Church, led by Fred
Phelps, appears to be garnering publicity for itself and its message” (n.d., para. 7). The
WBC mainly spreads its message through their infamous pickets (and subsequent media
coverage), but in anticipation of those pickets, the WBC releases press releases, or what
they refer to as fliers, indicating where the church will picket and why. Fred Phelps said
the church spends hundreds of dollars every day to fax their fliers out (Jones, 2007). The
WBC office is home to an industrial strength fax machine that serves to send out their
fliers (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001b, paras. 2-3). The WBC claims to send fliers
16
daily to members of Congress, the United Nations, and many others (Jones, 2007). These
fliers are digitally hosted on the WBC’s numerous websites and are noted to be free for
download and use for any purpose, by anyone (Westboro Baptist Church, 2010a). For
the purposes of this study, six of these fliers all published in January 2010, will be
analyzed.
Methodology
Gamson’s (1989) framework of the value of framing analysis is at the core of this
present study:
Informational content is relevant to the extent that it is meaningful in
distinguishing among different potential frames. Information that is common to
all the potential stories is least interesting since it tells us very little about
meaning. But some facts are emphasized only by certain frames and not by
others; hence, their presence or absence reveals the implicit story line. A frame
analysis of news content calls out attention to omissions as well as inclusions (p.
158).
The very notion of an implicit story line being brought to light through the use of a
particular frame instead of another is an ideal framework with which to study the fliers of
the WBC. Since their information is one-way (being that they produce the content for
dissemination) analyzing their frame is of the utmost importance. This manner of
framing analysis allows the researcher to reveal the implied meaning of their content. As
Gamson (1989) says a particular frame emphasizes some facts, and if another frame were
used, those facts would not be brought to light. Additionally, Gamson (1989) indicates
that analyzing the frame reveals the intent of the sender of a message. Hallahan (1999)
echoes Gamson’s point: “As a property of a message, a frame limits or defines the
message's meaning by shaping the inferences that individuals make about the message.
17
Frames reflect judgments made by message creators or framers” (p. 207). A frame
analysis then will reveal the underlying, non-explicit implications of rhetoric and will
bring to light the lens that was chosen by the creator of a message. In trying to
understand the fliers of the WBC, this type of analysis is of great value.
To further this point, Entman (1993) suggested that most frames are composed of
four aspects: defining a problem, diagnosing a cause, making a moral judgment, and
suggesting some sort of a remedy. From this framework, Entman said the act of framing
is to “select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a
communicating text” (1993, p. 52). It is the intent of this study to analyze six fliers from
the WBC from January of 2010 and explore what Entman is suggesting. Within each of
the fliers, the four aspects of framing as outlined by Entman can be seen. By analyzing
the fliers using the ideas posited by Gamson – that the frame will reveal the intent of the
sender and the implicit story line – will be confirmed and upheld. Hallahan (1999) also
offers that framing is a way to understand the psyche of those doing the framing; “In
addition to a rhetorical approach that focuses on how messages are created, framing is
conceptually connected to the underlying psychological processes that people use to
examine information, to make judgments, and to draw inferences about the world around
them” (p. 206). Beyond the value of a framing analysis as a way to understand the
implicitly story line and the intent of the sender, framing analysis can give the scholar a
look into the psychological process of the WBC as they produce their fliers. For these
reasons it is posited that for this study framing analysis is the best tool to understand the
selected artifacts. Framing is arguably what the WBC is able to do very well, their
18
ideology can be argued for or against, so an ideological analysis may not be the best.
Furthermore, different types of rhetorical analysis including narrative, movement, genre,
and postmodern analyses are not the preferred methodologies for this particular study.
These types of methodology may be useful for studying the WBC’s songs, overall
attempts at creating a social movement, or their style of religious rhetoric, when it comes
to looking at structured press releases (fliers), framing analysis is a better method to truly
understand this type of artifact. Studies about the WBC could certainly employ these
other types of analyses, but as this study is based upon the argument that the resilience
and power of the WBC’s rhetoric is rooted in its mastery of message framing, a framing
analysis is the preferred method of study.
Rationale
The core goal of this thesis will be to show that no matter the content of a news
story about the WBC, their core message (that America is being punished for its tolerance
of homosexuality) sings clear in almost every story. The messages of the WBC are
framed so strongly, there is little room for interpretation. This study will attempt to show
that by solidly framing the church’s core message in every press release and picket sign,
it is nearly impossible for ambiguity to muddle the transmission of the WBC’s message
through the mass media. Their message and approach to sharing that message fosters an
environment where the mass media do not alter the message but instead transmit it as it
was framed and intended by the church. Even if a news article is mainly criticizing the
church or what the church stands for – against America’s tolerance of homosexuality –
that core message is almost always mentioned in the lead of the story. Examining these
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types of hate groups and how they get media attention and spread their messages is vital
to the understanding of their interaction with the media. Analyzing message creation and
framing techniques helps to understand how hate groups achieve recognition in the
modern-day media-saturated environment.
For this study, six fliers (press releases) will be analyzed. Three of the fliers will
come from January 2010 that were released in advance of the WBC’s planned pickets at
different sites in the San Franciso Bay area. These particular fliers were selected because
this was the WBC’s first trip to California and was a far westward expansion from their
normal picketing areas in the mid-West and occasionally the East Coast. The trip to the
San Francisco Bay area, which is the notorious home of so many GLBT individuals, was
of symbolic importance to the WBC – entering the enemy’s camp. In order to
encapsulate the time period before, during, and after the church’s San Francisco trip, this
study will also analyze one flier from January 13th, 2010 (before the fliers about the San
Francisco Bay trip were released), one from January 28th, 2010 (while the WBC was in
San Francisco picketing), and one from January 31st, 2010 (after the San Francisco Bay
trip). Regardless of the date of each selected flier, they are similar in style and content to
all of the other fliers typically disseminated by the church and are good representations of
their written communication as a whole. The focus of the framing analysis will be to
show how the church’s solid framing not only ensures the messages of the WBC are not
misinterpreted, but helps construct a platform upon which their picket rhetoric stands.
20
Organization of the Study
Chapter two will offer a review of the literature pertinent to this study. Protest
rhetoric, as a form of expression and social movement, will be detailed in order to
understand why groups protest, what protest rhetoric accomplishes, and the different
types of protest rhetoric used currently and since the 1960s. This chapter will also look at
hate speech as a component of protest rhetoric. The review of hate speech will include
First Amendment implications of hate speech and the possible limiting of such speech by
government. In addition, chapter two will review and provide a history of the Westboro
Baptist Church including its inception and its leader (Fred Phelps), how the WBC’s
picketing has morphed over the decades, and the numerous lawsuits surrounding the
church. The final component of chapter two will be the review of framing and the
specific methodology of framing analysis to be employed by this study.
Chapter three will be the analysis section of this study. This study will employ a
framing analysis to six fliers (press releases) from the WBC as detailed earlier in this
chapter. An explanation of what the framing analysis uncovers will be discussed with
each artifact.
The final chapter of this study will be the conclusion. This section will detail the
findings and implications, discuss the limitations of the study, and make suggestions for
future study.
21
Chapter 2
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Hate is a strong word, but if used to express the dire nature of someone’s
condition, the use of such a weighted word may very well be deemed justifiable. For the
members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) from Topeka, Kansas, holding signs
that say “God Hates Fags” is meant to do one simple thing: send a shocking message to
an American society that has become complacent in its opposition to homosexuality. For
the WBC, this statement reigns supreme. According to the church and its leader, the
Reverend Fred Phelps, the statement that ‘God Hates Fags’ is a “profound theological
statement, which the world needs to hear more than it needs oxygen, water and bread”
(Westboro Baptist Church, 2010b, para. 1). This opposition to homosexuality may seem
a bit extreme, but the basis for this belief is rooted in a source that is well known to many
Americans – a literal reading of the Bible. The WBC has been sharing this message for
decades, and they are not going to stop anytime soon. Laws enacted to restrict their
activities have not stopped them (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001b), virulent
opposition to them and their message has not stopped them (O’Connor & Theroux,
2007), and although Fred Phelps may be approaching the end of his time on this planet,
his energized family members will live on and not even Fred Phelps’s death will stop
them (Drain & Phelps, 2001). They have started a small social movement, and they
spread their messages everyday and every minute (through their websites). While their
movement has not attracted many outside followers, it is nevertheless a movement that
has been going on for years, and will continue to go on for many more. The WBC is
22
engaging in a small social movement and their primary mechanism of doing so is through
protest rhetoric. Whether through their frequent pickets, their numerous websites, or
their daily-produced and mass-disseminated fliers (press releases), the WBC uses protest
rhetoric to share their message. The key aspect to note about their protest rhetoric is that
it is laden with hate speech. The actual word ‘hate’ is a staple in their rhetoric and their
infamous “God Hates ___” statements are the core examples of using hate speech as a
mechanism of protest rhetoric. For these reasons, a review of the literature on the topics
of protest rhetoric and hate speech is essential to the foundation of this study.
The Function of Protest Rhetoric
In studying protest rhetoric, it is of importance to understand why individuals and
groups partake. Sanger (1997) studied the function of protest song in the black liberation
movement. Sanger found that the act of singing as a form of protest went beyond
argument and persuasion and was transformative for the activists themselves. It was in
essence a symbolic transformation for those protesting. “According to their
descriptions,” she wrote, “singing changed them, created strong positive emotion,
banished fear and hatred, and charged them with a previously unexperienced sense of
spirituality” (Sanger, 1997, p. 191). This self-gratifying nature of protest is something
that will be expanded upon shortly.
A second study which gets a the “why” of protest rhetoric is Stewart’s (1991)
analysis of 705 protest songs which showed that protest rhetoric was self-directed rather
that other-directed. His analysis found that regardless of time period and type of song,
23
the dominant theme throughout was that of a poor innocent victim. What is important to
note in both of these studies is the self-fulfilling nature of protest rhetoric. Gregg (1971)
argues that protest rhetoric serves an ego function:
The primary appeal of the rhetoric of protest is to the protestors themselves, who
feel the need for psychological refurbishing and affirmation. Spokesmen for
protest movements also become surrogates for others who share their intimate
feelings of inadequacy. The rhetoric is basically self-directed, not other-directed
in the usual sense of that term, and thus it can be said to be fulfilling an egofunction (p. 74).
Gregg (1971) cites four main results of protest rhetoric: (a) it encourages distance from
the adversary, (b) it aids in the ability of the protestor to define the situation thereby
yielding them symbolic control over the situation, (c) the establishment of distance will
generate attention, fear, and in some cases respect from certain parties, and (d) it can
force a sort of counter-reaction which helps to build the ego-gratifying nature of the
protestor. Gregg’s arguments may seem to imply that protest rhetoric is more
individualistic due to its ego-involved nature, however, Gregg also argues that those who
agree with and partake in the same protest rhetoric do so only because they share the
same ego concern. Gregg labels this sort of group-building nature as constitution of
selfhood which is achieved through the expression of rhetoric, typically in groups rather
than individually. While an individual may be engaging in a rhetorical act to establish his
or her own identity, this can be accomplished by acting as a surrogate and aiding in the
establishment of identities for others. Helping to aid in the establishment of identity for
others, Gregg argues, boosts the ego-function of the helper.
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Protest rhetoric is also studied as part of social movements, since protest rhetoric
is a function within social movement. Stewart (1999) agrees that most movements and
protests are self-directed, but does not rule out other-directed movements. He argues that
the majority of movements that are studied within the realm of social movement and
protest rhetoric are self-directed. “Self-directed,” Stewart stated, “in that (1) it is created,
led, and populated primarily by those who perceive themselves to be dispossessed and (2)
it is struggling primarily for personal freedom, equality, justice, and rights” (p. 91).
Since not all social movements are self-directed, Stewart (1999) studied both and found
the major themes of both to be similar. The themes that he found throughout both were
those of oppression, victimage, self-esteem, self-identity, and status. “They saw
themselves as innocent, blameless victims, not for anything they had done to deserve
victimage, but because of who or what they were” (p. 74). These types of themes are
those which are typically studied in the social movements and protests of the 1960s
including black, women, labor, and gay liberation movements. Stewart noted that these
self-directed movements fell in line with Gregg’s (1971) arguments. On the other side of
the coin are the other-directed social movements. Those involved in these movements
did not portray themselves and oppressed or exploited and instead of addressing who they
were, focused only on addressing what they were protesting. “They were the forces that
stood between salvation and damnation” said Stewart, “and they were on the offense.
There was no evidence of a siege mentality in this rhetoric” (Stewart, 1999, pp 101-102).
It should be noted here that many social movements and protest activities fail at
achieving their goals for a variety of reasons. Kerr (1959) suggests that there is an
25
impotence of American political protest in part because there is a lack of audience
adaptation. “If a proposition is not adapted to audience wants and desires, its viability
derives only from the speaker” (Kerr, 1959, p. 152), but not all failures of protest are due
to factors involving the audience. Gustainis and Hahn’s (1988) study of anti-Vietnam
War protests showed that failures fell either into intrinsic factors which were under the
direct control of the protestors, or extrinsic factors in audience variability which the
protestors were unable to control. Some of the means protestors used to convey their
message, such as pouring blood of draft files, alienated the American audience and
thwarted their efforts:
The American public rejected the anti-war protestors’ argument that the war was
immoral and unjustified; Middle Americans only became disenchanted when the
oft-promised victory in Vietnam proved elusive, and the casualties began to
mount. In many respects, the anti-war protestors were their own worst enemies.
They made choices to satisfy themselves or to achieve short-run goals. The
ultimate goal of mass persuasion was often forgotten (Gustainis & Hahn, 1988,
pp. 214-215).
Protestors must walk a fine line, and their success or failure is easily determined by
factors outside of their control. Some protests fail only because the onlooker deems it a
failure without understanding the goal or purpose of the protest in the first place. Lake
(1983) analyzed the Native American social movement as an example of a movement
which took itself more seriously than was taken by the society in which it took place.
Lake argues that Native American protest rhetoric was critiqued for the wrong reason.
He argues that Native American protest rhetoric was aimed to join the like-minded and
other Indians to the cause, not to change the minds of the white majority. Lake cites
slanted media coverage against the Native Americans as an example of this. A parallel
26
can be drawn to the WBC. While they receive a vast amount of criticism in the media,
could it be possible that the church is speaking toward the conservative religious right
and the like-minded instead of the gay-tolerating public? The concepts explored within
this literature review of protest rhetoric can be applied to the WBC in other way. For
example, Gregg’s (1971) ideas of ego-function, and Bosmajian’s (1978) ideas of
oppressive protest language have an interesting application. Gregg (1971) writes that, “as
the result of attacking enemies, protestors appear to experience and express feelings of
ego-enhancement, ego-affirmation, and even ego-superiority” (p. 84). Could the protest
rhetoric of the WBC be attributed the ego-function of the church and its members? What
Gregg and Lake suggest about the self-directed nature of protest differs from the more
traditional persuasive-purposed protest. Instead of protest rhetoric serving to change the
hearts and minds of the larger public, what Gregg argues is that protest rhetoric instead
serves the ego and is largely self-directed. And at the very least, as Lake argues, protest
rhetoric serves to rally the like-minded rather than to change the minds of the mass
general public. So the WBC’s protest rhetoric, in aligning with the arguments of Gregg
and Lake, serves to fuel the church’s own “ego” and may even be self-directed to bolster
the cohesion between the church members. And, at the very least, their protest rhetoric
may be directed toward the margin of American society that is as staunchly opposed to
homosexuality as the WBC is. Regardless of the purpose of their protest rhetoric, the
content of their speech borders on the more radical.
The WBC tends to use language that is very oppressive to the groups they speak
out against. Bosmajian (1978) points out that protest groups have the power to label and
27
define those whom they speak out against. “The attitudes others have towards me,” he
writes, “and their behavior towards me may be affected by the manner in which I and the
groups to which I belong have been defined, not by me but by others who may have the
power to make negative, dangerous labels stick” (Bosmajian, 1978, p. 211). Herein is
the power of protest rhetoric. As Gregg (1971) pointed out, one of the functions of
protest rhetoric is to aid in the ability of the protestor to define the situation and yield
symbolic control over the situation. When the protestor chooses to use overtly colorful
language and labels for others, it begins to border on what is typically termed hate
speech.
Hate Speech and the First Amendment
As was mentioned in chapter one, there are two schools of thought on the free
speech and hate speech: those who advocate for the protections of free speech
(Bosmajian, 1972b, 1978; Heurmann & Church, 1997; Smith, 1995; Strossen, 1997;
Walker, 1994), and those who advocate for the protection of the recipients of hate speech
(Calvert, 1997; Downing, 1999; Fish, 1994; Jensen & Arriola, 1995). As this is a very
complicated issue, there is a substantial amount of middle ground.
Calvert (1997) argued that in addition to concerns about the restriction of hate
speech is the fact that courts are hesitant to restrict hate speech mainly because they do
not understand how racist, sexist, and hateful speech causes long-term harm to minorities.
Downing (1999) argues that within the United States there is evidence of a highly
irresponsible reading of the Constitution’s First Amendment:
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A rather entrenched deduction in the USA currently is that freedom of speech has
to be assigned priority over anti-racism, partly because the former is
constitutionally enshrined, and partly because its application governs every
dimension of the public sphere. Any interference with the principle on whatever
grounds will lead, in this view, to a slippery slope toward the elimination of free
speech, or even a flash flood drowning it outright. Freedom of speech ends up as
the greater good, hate speech as the lesser evil (Downing, 1999, p. 176).
Whether or not hate speech truly is the lesser of two evils is up for debate, as some
scholars argue that the damage hate speech does is far more evil that restrictions on free
speech. Jensen and Arriola (1995) posit that free speech theories do very little in actual
practice for those oppressed groups for which free speech is necessary to find their voice.
They argue that the evidence points toward a spreading of hate speech across the social
sphere and that it is long overdue to demythologize the First Amendment and strip it of
its nationalistic boastfulness and naïveté. These scholars acknowledge that re-thinking
our basic assumptions about the First Amendment may be difficult to swallow, but they
argue that with the spread of hate speech there is little choice but to do so. The authors
also note that there is currently a stark difference between speech and actions – speech
being overly protected, and action being appropriate for legislative regulation. Fish
(1994), in his book There’s no such thing as free speech: …and it’s a good thing too, is
critical of absolutism of the First Amendment. He notes the elements of pure assertion
and blind faith put forward by First Amendment absolutists in their claim that only total
adherence to totally free speech guarantees a secure democratic future: “The requirement
is that we endure whatever pain racist and hate speech inflicts for the sake of a future
whose emergence we can only take on faith” (Fish, 1994, p. 109). Fish argues that
people tend to cling to the First Amendment because they would rather not admit that our
29
society has already taken an alternative to the First Amendment – a political alternative
where we allow what speech we want, and ban that which we do not want to hear. Fish
(1994) gives the example to illustrate this that “George Bush can argue for flag-burning
statutes and against campus hate-speech codes” (p. 110). The difference between
protected and unprotected speech according to Fish (1994) is dependent upon the
prevailing political mandate: “…free speech principles don’t exist except as a component
in a bad argument in which such principals are invoked to mask motives that would not
withstand close scrutiny” (pp. 111-112). Despite this, Fish says that we need to take
responsibility for our verbal performances and not simply assume that they are being
taken care of by the First Amendment. For Fish, there is no safe place for free speech to
be evaluated apart from the confusion of prevailing partisan struggles.
While these scholars have pointed out some of the faults of defending absolutely
the First Amendment and failing to acknowledge the damage hate speech can inflict,
there are those on the opposite side of the fence who argue that hate speech can bring
some good, and at the very least it is necessary in a free democratic society.
Smith (1995) defends hate speech as simply an unsavory, but necessary, form of
free speech. He likens laws that prohibit speech to Band-Aids which may or may not
suppress the act, but which most certainly will not silence the underlying societal cause
of the hate speech. Furthermore, Smith indicates restrictions on hate speech do nothing
more than to worsen the problem as, “suppression of speech often exacerbates and
intensifies the sentiments of those silenced by law” (1995, p. 260). Smith posits that hate
speech is a necessary evil in a free speech society.
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…hate speech can serve as an important social and political function. Irrational
expressions of hate based upon the status of the targets can alert us to the fact that
something is wrong – in the body of politic, in ourselves, or in the speakers. It
might suggest that some change is necessary, or it might only warn us against the
potential for demagogues (Smith, 1995, p. 260).
Smith (1995) suggests that instead of intending to legislatively silence those who spout
off hate speech, that society listens closely, thinks rationally, judges critically, and refutes
vigorously the ideas and rhetoric that are offensive, hateful, and wrong. If civil rights
such as free speech are to be protected, not only those ideas which society deems
acceptable but also those that are justifiably despicable and objectionable must be
allowed and defended (Heurmann & Church, 1997). “We should not let the racist
veneer in which expression is cloaked obscure our recognition of how important free
expression is and how effectively it has advanced racial equality” (Strossen, 1997, p.
308).
According to Walker (1994) in the U.S., protection of hate speech under the First
Amendment today is “more firmly established in the law than ever before” (p. 159),
while other countries have moved more toward formal prohibition of racial and religious
propaganda. “Almost every country prohibits hate speech directed at racial, religious, or
ethnic groups. The United States, by contrast, has developed a strong tradition of free
speech that protects even the most offensive forms of expression” (Walker, 1994, p. 1).
Regulating speech is a touchy business not only because of the implications of First
Amendment alteration but also because, as Walker (1994) points out, the meaning of
words change, and something that was offensive yesterday may not be tomorrow, and
vice versa. From a legislative standpoint, restricting speech to protect the marginalized
31
becomes difficult when meanings of specific words and hate speech are not static.
Bosmajian (1972b, 1978) argues that hate speech is not as rampant as some would argue,
and says that “we cannot allow the most susceptible person to be the norm for deciding
censorship matters, either in obscenity or in group defamation cases” (1972b, p. 214).
Those who abuse free speech protections by using hate speech regularly should not be
allowed to solely influence potential regulative actions. Bosmajian essentially is arguing
that the few should not spoil free speech for the many.
At the end of the day, there is a middle ground that must be struck between the
two poles of free speech and hate speech. Altman (1995) supports the middle ground and
advocates for a recognition between speech which should be protected and speech which
is wrong and damaging. While Bosmajian appears to be more of a free speech absolutist,
even he recognizes that there are groups which must protect themselves from vicious and
insulting portrayals of damaging stereotypes. He concedes that hate speech can inflict
labels and definitions that can hinder opportunities for minorities and can damage selfperceptions and self-esteem. Bosmajian (1978) summarized this perplexing issue:
We are thus placed in a quandary: the commitment to fight those elements and
practices that contribute to the dehumanization of human beings meets head on
with the commitment to give preferred position to the First Amendment rights,
especially freedom of speech. Whatever is the answer to this perplexing problem,
it does not lie in state censorship” (pp. 220-221).
Possible state censorship and restricting freedom of speech as addressed by Bosmajian
are issues that are intertwined with the very existence of the Westboro Baptist Church.
By using hate speech as a staple of their protest rhetoric and using such hate speech at
places like military funerals and outside schools, the WBC knows these issues all too
32
well. Governments have attempted to limit their hateful speech and keep them away
from schools and funerals. Whether this is legal or not will be worked out in the court
system, but the WBC is at the root of several court cases that deal with First Amendment
protections and hate speech restrictions. And these types of debates are not new to the
church. The church and its leader have been on this path from the very beginning.
The Westboro Baptist Church
The Westboro Baptist Church has been called some pretty nasty names. The
church is listed as a general hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (2001), the
Ku Klux Klan said they repudiate the activities of the WBC (The Ku Klux Klan, n.d.)
because the church’s activities are too extreme (Stone, 2010), they have been labeled a
virulently homophobic and anti-Semetic hate group by the Anti-Defamation League
(n.d.), and they were called hatemongering homophobes by those who grew up with the
Phelps family (McManus, 2006; Platoni, 2006). On the flipside, they have been labeled
in a positive light as warlords of the first amendment (Williams, 2006), the church’s
leader, Fred Phelps was once named number five in John F. Kennedy Jr.’s George
magazine’s 20 Most Fascinating Men in Politics (Drain & Phelps, 2000), the church’s
right to exercise free speech has been backed by the American Civil Liberties Union
(2008), and they have recently been supported in their pickets by a Florida-based church
(Pruner & Minchin, 2010). Regardless of labels given to this church or opinions of the
church, the Westboro Baptist Church has become well known for its message and its
impact on the world. The hostility of the outside world towards them has only served to
strengthen the bond between them (O’Connor & Theroux, 2007). Most of the church
33
members live very close to one another, and although it is not communal living, their
proximity does keep them sheltered from their surroundings.
A tall wall connects Westboro Baptist Church to the five houses it owns on this
block bordering 12th Street, and a huge upside-down American flag dominates the
sky. Inside the church is a large office that serves as headquarters of a nationwide
fax harassment campaign, complete with manila research folders, stacks of archives
and a huge, industrial-strength facsimile machine. Just past the office is the
sanctuary, with its cheap carpeting, wood paneling — and about a dozen Day-Glo
picket signs stacked in a corner. The sign on top is typical: ‘Fag Navy,’ it reads.
Welcome to the world of Fred Phelps, Sr. (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001b,
para. 1-4).
A Man and his Church
The history of the Westboro Baptist Church is the story of an organization, but it
is a story that in no way can stand apart from the story of one man: the Reverend Fred
Phelps. Born in Mississippi in 1929, Fred Phelps was raised Methodist, but was ordained
as a Baptist preacher at the very young age of 17 after having a “religious experience”
(Jones, 2007). Some of the most important years in the history of the WBC are the years
after Fred Phelps married his wife Margie Marie Simms (in 1952) in which they spent
having 13 children: Fred Jr., Mark, Katherine, Margie, Shirley, Nathan, Jonathan,
Rebekah, Elizabeth, Timothy, Dorotha, Rachel, and Abigail (Drain & Phelps, 2000;
Notable Names DataBase, 2010; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001a). The current-day
composition of the WBC congregation, which is about 70 members, is mainly that of
Fred and Margie’s children and subsequently, grandchildren (O’Connor & Theroux,
2007).
Fred Phelps first received national media attention with a profile in Time
magazine in 1952 after he staged a campaign at John Muir College in California against
34
promiscuous petting, filthy jokes in the classroom, and cheating. From there his media
attention would only grow exponentially as the pickets got more numerous and more
radical. The first service of the WBC was held on November 27, 1955. But most of his
congregation ended up leaving the church and Fred Phelps was reportedly forced to
support himself by selling vacuum cleaners door to door. Fred Phelps says that there has
scarcely been a Sunday since the first service of the WBC in 1955 when he has not
preached (Jones, 2007). In 1964, Fred Phelps earned his law degree from Washburn
University in Topeka, Kansas. After some difficulty in joining the state bar, Phelps filed
more than 400 law suits before the end of his career in 1989, including a $50 million
class-action law suit against Sears for being several days late on the delivery of a
television set Phelps purchased, suing Ronald Regan for sending an ambassador to the
Vatican, and suing several judges and court reporters. In 1969, the Kansas Supreme
Court temporarily suspended his law licenses for professional misconduct but did not yet
take the step of completely disbarring him.
In the early years of the Phelps family, Fred Phelps was at the forefront of the
civil rights movement, and supported anti-discrimination cases in court and fought for
equal rights of blacks. Some of his children were beaten up at school due to the Phelps’s
support of the black community. In their self-made documentary Hatemongers (officially
named Fred: The movie), the children and Fred Phelps spoke about the scripture’s
teaching about God’s creation of one blood and that everyone was equal. Timothy
Phelps said, “our father had taught us and engrained in us the notion that there is no
difference between any human versus another human –we are all of the same blood”
35
(Drain & Phelps, 2000). While this type of rhetoric would seem to fly in the face of the
virulent hatred the WBC expresses toward homosexuals and others, Fred Phelps said that
being black is not an abomination, but being a fag is not a protected class (Drain &
Phelps, 2000). Some of Phelps’s lawsuits were cheered as civil rights successes, and
Fred Phelps was even given an award by a local chapter of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored Persons in 1978 (O’Connor & Theroux, 2007).
In 1985, the beginning of the end of Fred Phelps’s law career was initiated when
nine federal judges in Topeka signed a disciplinary complaint against Fred Phelps, five of
his children and a daughter-in-law, saying the seven Phelps family members made false
accusations against the judges. Four years later in 1989, in a settlement to this
disciplinary complaint, Fred Phelps agreed to permanently stop practicing law (Southern
Poverty Law Center, 2001a). Pedro Irigonegaray, in the documentary Fall from Grace,
stated that Fred Phelps had a dark side when it came to practicing the law, and that he
was disbarred for unethical behavior. Irigonegaray continued to say that, “people like that
should not be practicing law” (Jones, 2007). Although Fred Phelps has not practiced law
since, he founded the Phelps Chartered Attorneys-At-Law in 1964 that is still in business
to this day. Their website lists five family members who are currently attorneys with the
Phelps business (Phelps-Chartered, 2003). The year following his disbarment, Fred
Phelps ran for governor of Kansas and got 6.7% of the votes, and in 1992 he ran for U.S.
Senate and received more than 30% of the vote. Although he did not win in either of
these elections, his shocking attacks on the politicians against whom he ran would
36
become reminiscent of his rhetoric used towards countless other individuals and groups
in the years to come.
A Long History of Confrontational Picketing
The picketing for which the WBC has become so infamous started its
manifestation in the year 1991 when Fred Phelps and his followers began to picket the
local Gage Park in Topeka, Kansas (less than two miles from the WBC) – a park where
gay men reportedly met for sex. The church members were upset that the Topeka
government would not do anything to clean up the park and bar homosexuals from
entering. Additionally, Phelps family members, including young children stated that they
were chased and propositioned to by gay men in the park on numerous occasions, but
simply ran away as fast as they could (Drain & Phelps, 2000). Because of this, the
Phelps family decided to take action. They began to hold their own pickets outside the
southwest corner of Gage Park (Jones, 2007). Fred Phelps has been asked multiple times
what he would do if one of his children or grandchildren came out as gay to him. Fred
Phelps said he would say goodbye to the child and tell them that if they needed to castrate
themselves to get away from that sinful life, then to do so (Drain & Phelps, 2000). In
expressing this type of opinion even toward family, it is clear how deep-rooted the antigay sentiments of the WBC are.
In 1995, an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded in the yard of one of the
Phelps family members. Although no one was injured, this assault on the WBC
eventually fostered the creation of their current day funeral protests (Jones, 2007). Fred
Phelps said in regard to the soldiers who have been killed by IEDs in Iraq and
37
Afghanistan: “It is no surprise to me that God is now picking off these brats” (Jones,
2007, 48:30 min). Their signs “Thank God for IEDs” and “Thank God for Dead
Soldiers” and their numerous funeral protests that have attracted so much media attention
are a result of this 1995 attack. When the WBC focused on just the gay community, there
was a lot less backlash, but with protests of fallen soldiers, the response from the
American public and the court system has been much more virulent. Timothy Phelps
commented on why there was a difference in the public’s response. “It’s because we’ve
found their idol – and we’re pissing all over it. Fags aren’t their number one idol, yet.
But the flag is” (Jones, 2007). Since the 1995 bombing, and especially post-9/11 and
since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the church has been afforded a hay-day
opportunity (which they say was given to them by God). Their warning came true: they
preached against gays and someone bombed them, God in turn caused 9/11 and led
America into wars in order to kill soldiers. IED deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are proof
to the WBC that God is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuality and its
unwillingness to listen to the church. It is a perfect storm that has led to military funeral
protests where the church pickets against homosexuals, America, and thanks God for
dead soldiers. While it may seem like a stretch to some that this can all be woven
together, for Fred Phelps and the members of the WBC, it is clear as day. Their pickets
against homosexuals, the 1995 bombing of the WBC, the event of September 11, 2001,
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the subsequent deaths of soldiers are all simply
successions of events that God has undertaken to punish a country that tolerates
homosexuality. And according to the WBC, the church members are the only ones out
38
there preaching these truths (Drain & Phelps, 2000; Jones, 2007; O’Connor & Theroux,
2007).
Legal Issues and Ramifications
In addition to the WBC’s encounters with the hostile public during their pickets,
the church has also had to face hostile governments, and lawsuits aimed at restricting
their right to picket and their freedom of speech. The first government that had to tackle
the WBC “issue” was of course the church’s hometown of Topeka. The city was in the
dilemma of weighing the costs of repressing the WBC’s activities, or the cost of evading
the issue altogether. Topeka hardly wanted to be known as the city that tolerated hatred,
but at the same time the WBC did partake in First Amendment-protected activities
(Musser, 1999). After a series of defamation suits against the Phelps family in Kansas,
and after the church encountered hostility from passersby during their protests in Topeka,
Fred Phelps sued the city in 1997 for $7 million for not doing enough to protect their
pickets (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001a). While this lawsuit never resulted in
anything tangible, these types of suits by the Phelps, the defamation suits against the
WBC, and the legislation enacted to restrict the church’s activities are so numerous in
quantity they cannot all be addressed here. The most recent lawsuits have been sparked
by the church’s funeral protests which many people find to be cruel and unpatriotic which
has spurred many grassroots efforts to restrict demonstrations at funerals and burials
(Alvarez, 2006). In 2006, President Bush signed a law banning protests within 300 feet
of national cemeteries (Keen, 2006). A total of 41 states have enacted legislation that
attempts to limit the types of colorful pickets in which the WBC prefers to partake (Anti-
39
Defamation League, n.d.). But in all of the various situations, these lawsuits seem to be
what one USA Today reporter called a “classic clash between offensive speech and the
First Amendment” (Gomez, 2007, para. 1). Shirley Phelps-Roper, who has now
essentially taken over day-to-day operations of the WBC and is most frequently seen on
broadcast media representing the WBC (O’Connor & Theroux, 2007), was involved in a
lawsuit which originated in Nebraska for flag desecration. The charges made against
Shirley for dragging the flag behind her and kicking the American flag around during a
2007 protest (which she frequently does) is based on an anti-flag desecration law in
Nebraska. Shirley has challenged the constitutionality of that law, but in February 2009,
a Nebraska state judge denied her challenge to the law. Just before the start of 2010,
Shirley filed a federal lawsuit against more than a dozen state officials such as the
governor, attorney general and judges for several Nebraska laws that she says violate her
right to free speech (Anti-Defamation League, n.d.).
One of the most infamous lawsuits against the WBC (which was mentioned in the
introduction to this study) is that of Snyder v. Phelps. In 2006, Lance Corporal Matthew
Snyder was killed in Iraq by an IED. In March of that same year, his funeral in Maryland
of course was the perfect spot to picket for the WBC. In October of 2007, after Matthew
Snyder’s father Albert filed a lawsuit for invasion of privacy and inflicting emotional
distress, a Baltimore federal jury found in favor of Albert Snyder. The federal jury
ordered the WBC to pay an enormous amount of money, nearly $11 million, in what
some people claim was an attempt to bankrupt the church. In February 2008, the fine
was reduced to $5 million, after a Baltimore federal judge found the original $11 million
40
to be excessive. After the WBC appealed, the federal appeals court threw out the verdict
altogether in September of 2009. Snyder did not give up and appealed the appellate
court’s decision to the Supreme Court (Anti-Defamation League, 2010; Bravin &
Kendall, 2010; Simmons, 2007). In March of 2010, the Supreme Court agreed to hear
the Snyder v. Phelps case (Bravin & Kendall, 2010). In October of 2010, the Supreme
Court heard arguments for the case and rendered its 8-1 decision in favor of the WBC in
March 2011 (Kendall, 2011). Chief Justice John Roberts rendered the majority decision
on the case stating that the WBC had a right to be where they were and acted in
accordance with local law enforcement, and that these speech activities are afforded
protection by the First Amendment: “such speech cannot be restricted simply because it
is upsetting or arouses contempt” (Snyder v. Phelps, 2011, p. 12). Chief Justice Roberts
further addressed speech in general in the summary of the court’s decision:
Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy
and sorrow, and—as it did here— inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we
cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a
different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we
do not stifle public debate (Snyder v. Phelps, 2011, pp. 14-15).
Justice Samuel Alito offered the only dissenting opinion in this case and sided with the
Snyder family that the speech was a targeted attack. Justice Alito wrote in his dissenting
opinion: “Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for
the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case” (Snyder v. Phelps, 2011, p. 1). He
continued saying in the summary of his dissent: “In order to have a society in which
public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the
brutalization of innocent victims like petitioner” (Snyder v. Phelps, 2011, p. 14). As was
41
discussed earlier, this court case highlights the classic battle between hate speech, and
free speech, but in this instance, the high court chose to protect the hate speech as a form
of speech protected by the First Amendment.
Deserters
Four of the 13 children of Fred Phelps have, at different points in their lives, left
the family and the church and are now the estranged children of the WBC. While none of
the other nine children have accused abuse toward Fred Phelps, the four estranged
members of the WBC have shared stories of psychological and physical abuse (Southern
Poverty Law Center, 2001b). One of the estranged children, Dorotha, described her father
as a rageaholic who needs to have anger and outbursts, and even a sense of war against
the world, in order to feel right. She also described him a mentally ill (Jones, 2007). The
most vocal opponent of the four estranged children is Nate Pheps. Nate, who now selfidentifies as an atheist (Melanson, 2008), has appeared and spoke out in several oncamera interviews, magazine and newspaper articles, and he maintains his own website
which he says serves to “offer hope and some small amount of healing for the thousands
of people out there who have suffered similarly from religious extremism” (Nate Phelps,
2009, para. 6). Nate Phelps left the WBC at midnight on the day he turned 18. He had
his car packed and ready around the corner from the house, and as he watched the clock
strike midnight, “I yelled at the top of my lungs, ran out the back door, and was gone
forever” (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2001, para. 18). Nate Phelps said he felt he had
already been delivered to Satan, and that he really had nothing to lose by leaving. Nate
briefly returned to the church three years after leaving, in hopes that things had changed,
42
but after learning that they had not, was gone again (Melanson, 2008). Nate Phelps
currently resides in British Colombia and is in the process of writing a book (Nate Phelps,
2009). He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and he has
spent time in a psychiatric hospital due to his physically and psychologically traumatic
upbringing by the Reverend Fred Phelps (Libin, 2010). Nate still speaks out against his
father and the church, despite the difficulty he sometimes has in confronting those topics.
He said in a telephone interview featured in the film Fall from Grace:
I would have to say that by definition, that group is a cult. The component of a
charismatic leader, of isolation, of a sense of us versus them, and a willingness to
act based on what that leader says without question. All that would be necessary
would be for my father to make the decision that the Bible says, or that God told
him, that a violent act had to be perpetrated and it would be happen (Jones, 2007).
Many outsiders have referred to the WBC as a cult, but to hear it from a member of the
family provides a different context for such claims.
A Limited Fan-base
While at times it may seem like the entire world is against the WBC, that is in no
way the truth. Based upon the split in modern-day Christianity on the issue of
homosexuality, the disproval of gays and lesbians according to public opinion, and the
few yet important signals of support for the WBC, it’s hard to say that the WBC is in this
war alone. At one of their recent pickets in Gainesville, Florida, the WBC was joined by
another church, the Dove World Outreach Center (Pruner & Minchin, 2010). This church
was founded in 1986, and preaches about action to its members and promotes spreading
the gospel. The DWOC is a feverish opponent to the Islamic religion and members of its
church can be spotted wearing shirts that say: “Islam is of the Devil”. On its website the
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church states, “We need to speak up against sin and call the people to repentance.
Abortion is murder. Homosexuality is sin. We need to call these things what they are and
bring the world the true message: that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life” (Dove
World Outreach Center, 2009, para. 2). In blog exchanges between the WBC and the
DWOC after their joint protest, their action-based congregations were found to be
similar. One blog post from the DWOC said, “I loved that experience and seeing that
other also stand for the Truth, the Bible, and GOD. I was hoping that maybe someday
our churches could do something together or at least visit” (Westboro Baptist Church
Blogs, 2010, para. 1). Another post from the DWOC said, “We have also learned that
when you speak out about what God hates, you will be hated. We do not agree with all
of Westboro’s methods, but we admire their determination to find radical ways to preach
the truth of the Bible, as we do” (Dove World Outreach Center, 2010, para. 1). While the
DWOC qualified their support of the WBC, it is clear from this exchange and interaction,
that the WBC is not alone in some of their beliefs and even their sometimes radical
tactics about sharing their message with the world.
Academic Scholarship on the WBC
The scholarly research surrounding the WBC is extremely limited in breadth, which
is one of the rationales for this particular endeavor, but it is nevertheless pertinent to
discuss here the academic scholarship on the WBC. The literature within the
communication studies discipline comes from Daniel Brouwer of Arizona State
University. In his most recent study (Brouwer & Hess, 2007), he studied the responses of
military bloggers to the WBC and the WBC’s messages. As has been discussed earlier,
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Fred Phelps and the WBC’s latest crusade is against fallen soldiers, particularly those
killed by IED-type devices which were used to attack the Phelps family back in 1995.
The WBC has made a special point to protest the funerals of these fallen soldiers that has
upset the public and lawmakers in various states and on the federal level, but it is at these
pickets where military personnel encounter the WBC and their picket signs such as
“Thank God for Dead Soldiers”, “Thank God for 9/11”, “God Hates America”, etc.
Brouwer and Hess studied the military personnel’s responses to these messages as
communicated through the military blogosphere. Their study found that the military
responses highlighted ideological tensions involving freedom of speech, religious
expression, injustice in the justice system, enactments of citizenship, and disciplined
military bodies out of control. Due to the nature of these issues, Brouwer first studied
(2004) the issue of gays serving in the military. While the WBC has melded these two
with their virulent rhetoric, Brouwer first studied just the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
military policy. The main dispute from interviewed witnesses came in the form of
disagreement on the nature of the military and the nature of homosexuals. Homosexual
witnesses and allies labored under the pressure of the existing meaning of what
homosexual means – out-of-control sexuality, proneness to disease, repudiation of
masculinity. And their counterparts dispute the nature of military service, and the
teamwork, shared living that is the staple of service. His study found rhetorical strategies
of incorporation and dis-incorporation prevalent throughout witness testimonies. Beyond
these two studies, the WBC is absent in academic scholarship; this is one of the reasons
for the value of this study.
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Spreading the WBC’s Messages
As much as their messages may or may not hurt others, they do not partake in
physical violence. But the WBC frequently is the recipient of verbal and physical
violence. Rocks have been thrown at the church, items have been thrown out of cars and
hit members of the church (including small children), members have been hit, pushed,
slapped, and punched during protests, death threats are yelled, faxed and e-mailed to
them on a frequent basis. They are in the line of fire, but choose to keep picketing (Drain
& Phelps, 2000). “In their world, being hated was proof that they were doing the right
thing” (O’Connor & Theroux, 2007, 43:30min). The church is constantly trying to get its
message out into all the corners of not only this country, but the world. On the WBC’s
main webpage, they state they have picketed in every U.S. state, Canada, Jordan, and
Iraq. They boast a list of nearly 776 U.S. cities they have picketed in and claim to have
held over 43,000 pickets in the church’s 55-year history (Westboro Baptist Church,
2010a). In an interview in the documentary The Most Hated Family in America, Shirley
Phelps-Roper said, as several family members boarded a Southwest Airlines flight from
Topeka to Chicago to protest the funeral of a fallen soldiers, that the WBC spends
roughly $200,000 per year on flights alone to do their picketing (O’Connor & Theroux,
2007).
From where the church gets its money is somewhat of a mystery. The employed
members of the church hold down mainstream jobs, many of them lawyers, and
contribute ten percent of their earnings to the church, but if the church receives outside
funding from some other source it is unknown. The church is operated as non-profit
46
organization and is exempt from federal and state taxes, which may help to keep their
costs down and their “profits” up. Regardless, the WBC seems to spend a lot of money
to support its operations. In addition to their pickets serving as exposure, the WBC also
tries to generate media attention as frequently as possible. The WBC maintains a host of
websites to promote and disseminate its messages to the world. The list of sister sites of
the WBC includes: godhatesfags.com, godhatesamerica.com, godhatesireland.com,
godhatescanada.com, godhatesmexico.com, godhatessweden.com, godhatestheworld,
com, godhatesthemedia.com, jewskilledjesus.com, beastobama.com,
priestsrapeboys.com, americaisdoomed.com, signmovies.com, blogs.sparenot.com, and
their main webpage westborobaptistchurch.com.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, “The primary goal of the Westboro
Baptist Church, led by Fred Phelps, appears to be garnering publicity for itself and its
message” (n.d., para. 7). Fred Phelps said that it is their mission to garner media
attention, and they have a mandate (from God) to sound the trumpet at let the various
depraved souls know of their sins. Getting media attention is one tool God has given the
WBC to get the word out. Fred Phelps also says that God invented the Internet for the
WBC to get their message out even when doors are closed in their faces (Drain & Phelps,
2000). But although they crave media attention, Fred Phelps believes the media
organizations are extremely corrupt, biased toward the gay agenda, and skew their new
coverage against the WBC. Regardless, the WBC pumps out press releases (fliers) about
their upcoming pickets on a daily basis. Fred Phelps said that the WBC spends hundreds
of dollars everyday on its telephone bill to fax their fliers to many people and entities.
47
The WBC sends fliers daily to members of the United Nations, members of U.S.
Congress, and many others (Jones, 2007). These fliers are filled with Bible verses, hate
speech, and other colorful forms of protest rhetoric. The fliers are not haphazard
productions of the WBC. Within each and every flier, the church is able to maintain a
solid frame of the issue that is in turn frequently adopted by the mass media when
retransmitting their message. Prior to understanding how this actually works, a review of
the literature of framing is needed. This final portion of chapter two will review framing
and the specific methodology of framing analysis to be employed for studying the
WBC’s fliers.
Message Framing
Gamson (1989) provided the definition that a frame is “a central organizing idea for
making sense of relevant events and suggesting what is at issue” (p. 157). It was noted
in the introduction of this study that the true power of framing can be assessed when
others communicate that information to a third party (Brewer, 2002), and when the
framing impacts issue opinions (Nelson & Oxley, 1999; Snow & Benford, 1988), affects
public deliberation (Brewer & Gross, 2005; Snow, Rochford, Worden & Benford, 1986)
or attitudes toward policies (Brewer & Kramer, 1986; Henry & Reynan, 2007).
As framing is frequently studied in the realm of political communication, there
are a few closely correlated concepts that should be expanded upon here, particularly
when studying cases such as the Westboro Baptist Church. The WBC is rendering a
Bible-based moral judgment on certain groups in American society. Since this type of
debate involves morals and values, it is worthwhile to this study to look at the issues of
48
group-centrism, framing values, values expression, and a couple experimental studies that
illustrate these concepts as functions of framing.
According to Nelson and Kinder, group centrism is concerned with the influence
of “attitudes citizens possess toward the social groups they see as the principal
beneficiaries (or victims) of the policy” (1996, pp. 1055-1056). These scholars found
that framing played an important role in this concept of group-centrism. They found that
when issues were framed in a way that drew attention to the beneficiaries of a policy
group-centrism, increased. When the frame deflected attention away from the
beneficiaries, group-centrism decreased. The authors claim this information suggests
that, “Americans reach political decisions on matters of policy as if they had first
determined the moral qualifications of the intended beneficiaries. The resources of
government – material benefits and symbolic recognition – should go to those who
deserve it” (Nelson & Kinder, 1996, p. 1071). The frame invoked with the policies issues
can greatly help, or greatly hurt those directly affected by its implications.
The work of Brewer & Gross (2005) on values seems to echo this finding. He
found that the types of frames used tended to reduce the overall extent that participants
think about the actual issue, and instead simply focused the participant’s thoughts on a
certain values associated with the issue. When the majority of citizens think about a
political issue, they tend to understand that particular issue in terms of its values. When a
side is chosen on that issue, it is usually done based upon a connection that is drawn
between the issue and the value of core belief (Feldman & Lynch, 1988). This is not a
secret to those in the position of political power. Because of this, many political elites
49
will invoke a value frame to persuade voters to think of an issue as they intend for it to be
thought about (Brewer & Gross, 2005).
Due to the intermingling of values and framing, an important concept to cover
here is judgmental value expressions. The definition and purpose of judgmental value
expression is explained by Henry and Reyna:
Values can act as a guide or yardstick with which to measure the morality or social
appropriateness of behaviors or outcomes. In the absence of a value with which to
contextualize a behavior, a behavior could remain ambiguous or neutral; however,
once we contextualize behaviors or outcomes in terms of upholding or violating
values, we are able to attach greater social meaning to the behaviors. In this sense,
values that are used to guide judgments (called judgmental value expressions)
represent the evaluation of a behavior or outcome in terms of a particular value
(2007, p. 276).
To put this into the context of this study, the WBC intentionally uses the values supported
by a literal reading of the Bible to contextualize the morally wrong homosexual behavior.
This use of a judgment value expression is done inherently through their framing
techniques and allows the church to frame an issue and render a value judgment
simultaneously.
As mentioned earlier, the true power of framing can be appreciated when seeing
how people use those frames later on. Brewer’s (2002) study presented respondents with
either a moral or equality frame on the issue of gay marriage. The focus of this study was
not only the attitudes that respondents had toward gay marriage after being exposed to the
frames, but what their rationale for the support or opposition to gay marriage. To study
this, respondents were asked to describe what went through their head when deciding to
support or oppose gay marriage. Findings suggested that respondents tended to use the
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value words of equality or morality when explaining their attitudes. At times, when the
frame competed with the values held by the respondent, there was an effect that Brewer
called counterframing (Brewer & Gross, 2005). This is the idea that a particular value
can be framed in support or opposition of an issue. For example, Brewer and Gross
looked at school vouchers. “Both frames under study revolve around the value of
equality. One, the pro-school vouchers equality frame, advocates vouchers as promoting
equality; the other, the anti-school vouchers equality frame, criticizes vouchers as
undermining equality” (2005, p. 933).
Nelson and Oxley (1999) did an experimental study on a different topic to look at
frames involved in the development of an area of land in southern Florida. Participants
received one of two types of frames which we modeled after actual new reports that had
been seen on television in a nearby state. The first frame was that of environmental
protection, which showed photos of the natural habitat that would be destroyed because
of the development. The second frame focused on economic development and the jobs
that could be made and the money that would be invested because of this development.
The content of the mock news stories were similar except for the frame that it was placed
in. The results suggested that those who received the economic frame responded more
favorably to the development project. This study was repeated with welfare reform. The
opposition frame was based in the idea of personal responsibility, and the proponent
frame was framed as a threat to children. While their predictions were not supported, the
scholars found a probably more important result. Those who received the personal
responsibility frame responded with more concern toward personal responsibility than
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family cap issues. The opposite was true for the threat to children frame. So although
there was no statistical difference in the favorability aspect, the concern that respondents
showed toward the details coincided with the frame they were exposed to. The authors
found that, “even if a political message does not alter the content of one’s beliefs, it could
alter their accessibility, or the ease with which they are brought into conscious thought”
(Nelson & Oxley, 1999, p. 1059).
While the aforementioned concepts were studied from a political communication
standpoint, as was mentioned in the introduction, these framing concepts have application
in more public relations and interest/advocacy group situations (Knight 1999; Hallan,
1999; Lundy, 2006). Hallan (1999) likened frames to clues and said that when interest
groups use framing it helps put their information into an intended context and establishes
a reference point from which audiences are encouraged to evaluate information,
comprehend meaning, and take action. Framing has a purpose in public relations, and
interest groups have the ability to use framing to further their messages and interests
(Yao, 2009; Zoch, Collins, Fussel & Supa, 2008).
As was mentioned in the introductory chapter of this study, Entman (1993)
suggested that most frames are composed of four aspects: defining a problem, diagnosing
a cause, making a moral judgment, and suggesting some sort of a remedy. Entman
(1993) detailed what exactly these four components mean. The act of defining a problem
is to “determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually
measured in terms of common cultural values” (Entman, 1993, p. 52). The second aspect
of framing, diagnosing a cause is to “identify the forces creating the problem” (Entman,
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1993, p. 52). The third facet is the making of a moral judgment, which is to “evaluate
causal agents and their effects” (Entman, 1993, p. 52). The final aspect is to suggest
remedies, which is to “offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their
likely effects” (Entman, 1993, p. 52). Entman noted (1993) that a single sentence could
perform all of these functions, and that there could also be entire texts that do not address
any of them. Therein lies the indication that framing is an art, which some groups do
better than others.
Using these facets of framing as a framework, Entman said that framing makes
some aspects of a reality more salient in a communicating text by targeted selection.
Entman later synthesized multiple definitions of framing into his own standard definition:
“selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections
among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution”
(Entman, 2004, p. 5). It is this definition of framing which is adopted for this study.
Additionally, Entman’s four aspects of a frame will be the theoretical cornerstone for the
framing analysis this study will now employ in chapter three.
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Chapter 3
ANALYSIS
Using Entman’s (1993) four aspects of framing, this study will employ a framing
analysis to better understand six fliers released by the Westboro Baptist Church. As their
fliers are frequently laden with protest rhetoric and hate speech, studying the framing of
the fliers is essential to better understand how the WBC communicates its messages to its
many recipients. The four aspects that will be analyzed, as indicated by Entman (1993)
are: defining a problem, diagnosing a cause, making a moral judgment, and suggesting
some sort of a remedy.
Each of the selected fliers is from January 2010, and as a whole these fliers are
based around the WBC’s pickets in the San Francisco Bay region. The reason behind
selecting fliers from this trip is because the trek to California was a far westward
expansion in the WBC’s picketing area. While the WBC has picketed in numerous states
and even in foreign countries, this was the church’s first trip to California (Westboro
Baptist Church, 2010a). Typically the WBC pickets in the mid-West and on the East
Coast. Additionally, given the church’s staunch opposition to homosexuals, the trip to
the notoriously gay-friendly San Francisco Bay is of symbolic importance thereby
rendering it an important trip to study for academic purposes. The first flier about San
Francisco was released on January 14, 2010 and announces the WBC’s planned picket of
a production of the musical Rent. The second flier released on January 15, 2010 is for the
WBC’s Fateful Fig Find in San Francisco. The third flier was released on January 16,
2010 and announces the WBC’s planned picket of the U.S. District Court in downtown
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San Francisco. In order to encapsulate the time periods before, during, and after the
WBC’s San Francisco trip, this study will also analyze a flier released on January 13,
2010 announcing pickets of high schools in Texas (before the fliers for San Francisco
were released), another flier released on January 28, 2010 announcing the picket of a
military funeral (released during the WBC’s stay in San Francisco), and a final flier
released on January 31, 2010 (after the San Francisco trip) announcing the picket of
funeral for a Lutheran pastor. Not only does this combination of fliers represent a
specific trip and the pertinent time periods before, during, and after, but these selected
fliers are also representative of the typical fliers released by the church. The WBC
frequently pickets military funerals, schools, government and political establishments,
cultural events, and other religious institutions (Anti-Defamation League, n.d.; Drain &
Phelps, 2000; Jones, 2007; O’Connor & Theroux, 2007; Westboro Baptist Church, 2010).
As such, these fliers were selected to be the best representation of what is typically
disseminated by the WBC.
Each flier has been included in the text of this study, and the framing analysis will
follow the image of each flier. The fliers are presented and analyzed in chronological
order.
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Figure 1 – January 13, 2010. WBC flier announcing the pickets at two Texas high
schools released prior to the San Francisco trip (Westboro Baptist Church, 2010c).
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The first flier which will be analyzed is from the time period prior to the WBC’s
trip to San Francisco. The flier was released on Wednesday, January 13, 2010 and
announces the church’s planned picket of two Texas high schools. The WBC frequently
protests high schools that it views as gay-tolerant. In this example, the WBC labels the
two schools as “fag-infested” and “pervert-run”. As is typical of all their fliers, included
are the times, dates, and locations of the planned pickets. The flier also features the
typical hate speech and Bible verses which support their message. In applying Entman’s
aspects of framing, this analysis will identify how the flier is an example of a solidly
framed piece of written communication by analyzing how it is composed Entman’s four
aspects of a frame: definition of a problem, diagnosis of a cause, the implication of a
moral judgment, and the suggestion of some sort of a remedy.
The first aspect, the defining of a problem, is accomplished by two paragraphs of
the flier: the cited Bible verse of Deuteronomy 6:6-9 and the subsequent paragraph which
gives the church’s interpretation of that verse:
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou
sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down,
and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and
they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the
posts of thy house, and on thy gates (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).
The church is suggesting that modern day children are turning out to be “violent,
freakish, brute-beast children” because parents are not adhering to the Bible and teaching
their children right from wrong. The societal problem of fags and perverts is then a result
of parenting that has strayed from the word of God. The problem, as being defined by
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the frame of the flier, is essentially that parents are poorly raising their children and,
therefore, God hates America “for what you have done to your children”. While this
problem is being applied to the parents of these two schools by way of specifically
picketing these locations, it can reasonably be applied across the board to the larger
American society.
The second aspect, diagnosing a cause, is done in a very straightforward manner
when the church says, “You will not obey that simple commandment”. The WBC is
diagnosing a failure to adhere to the Bible as the cause of the previously defined problem
of children being raised improperly. By directly quoting the Deuteronomy Bible verse,
the WBC is giving their version of concrete evidence of this cause. In this sense, the
WBC is not placing blame on the children directly, but defers that the root cause of the
problem are the parents who fail to raise their children as they are instructed to by God.
In addition to diagnosing the cause as a failure to adhere to the Bible, the WBC indicates
that parents are a corrupting force (either intentionally or unintentionally) from the time
the child is conceived. When parents stray from the word of God in how they raise the
child, they thereby become the cause of the problem.
The third aspect of a frame which will be analyzed within this artifact is the making
of a moral judgment. By nature of being a religious organization that preaches
wrongdoings in America, the WBC makes moral judgments daily. Their core message
that America is being punished for its tolerance of homosexuality is a moral judgment.
Therefore, at each of their pickets and in all of their fliers, a moral judgment is the
backbone of their protest rhetoric. The moral judgment aspect in many ways
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encapsulates the other three aspects of framing, especially when it comes to the WBC. In
the flier being analyzed at present, the moral judgment being made is about American
youth and the parents who raise them. The WBC is explicitly stating that the way parents
are raising their children is morally reprehensible, and is thereby rendering a fairly harsh
moral judgment rooted on those that do not obey. By quoting the Bible to illustrate
wrongdoing, the WBC is invoking a deep moral judgment. The church, however, goes
beyond the quotation and explains why exactly their moral judgment is true giving vague
examples. The most powerful phrase in this flier that exemplifies the overarching moral
judgment made is: “God hates you, Doomed America, for what you have done to your
children!”. The “God Hates ___” phrase is the cornerstone of the WBC protest rhetoric,
and serves to render their moral judgment of an established problem and cause of said
problem.
The final aspect of framing is the suggestion of a remedy to the problem. In many
ways, this is where the WBC may fall short. They are very effective at identifying
problems, laying blame, and issuing judgment, but, as this framing analysis will show,
their solutions are not as smooth and concrete. The sentence that is the suggestion of a
solution is: “We will give your children an opportunity to see what truth looks like, the
face of what they were entitled to have from every adult that ever touched their lives”.
The WBC is stating here that their pickets will serve to enlighten children and parents of
what could have been – they are essentially indicating that they will lead by example and
demonstrate during their picket how children should be raised properly. By indicating
there will be a display of what should be done, the WBC is in a way providing a remedy
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to the problem: to emulate them. But this solution is offered seemingly hesitantly and
appears to be more informative than persuasive. The flier states that even with the
knowledge of wrongdoing, parents will not change: “God continues cursing you, you will
turn aside and eat your children”. The WBC is suggesting that parents, even when faced
with the curse of God, will choose to ignore God’s will. The implication is that even
though the solution to the problem is clear (and easy), American society will most likely
not heed to their warnings. So as much as they “offer” a sort of solution, they do so with
the knowledge that their offering is frequently refused or rendered moot by American
society.
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Figure 2 – January 14, 2010. WBC flier released for the San Francisco trip announcing
the picket of Rent at the Randall Museum Theatre (Westboro Baptist Church, 2010c).
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The second flier was released on January 14, 2010 for the WBC’s planned trip to
the San Francisco Bay area. This flier is the first of three fliers that will be analyzed from
the church’s trip to the West Coast. The announcement in this flier is that the WBC plans
to picket an evening production of the musical Rent at the Randall Museum Theatre.
Rent, with its prominent gay characters and themes of struggling with HIV and AIDS
(Larson, 1996), make this the perfect “filthy fag play” for the WBC to protest. And the
Randall Museum Theatre, located adjacent to the Castro gay Mecca of San Francisco,
makes this not only the perfect play, but also the perfect location to protest against
homosexuality. The vast majority of the WBC’s protests and picket locations are
carefully chosen to provide maximum impact. The primary goal of the WBC is to garner
publicity for itself and its message (Anti-Defamation League, n.d.). By carefully
choosing events to protest in high-impact locations, the WBC lays the foundation for this
to occur. This picket of Rent not only has potential for garnering publicity; for the WBC
to picket an arguably gay-themed play in the infamous gay Castro neighborhood of San
Francisco carries with it a substantial amount of impact given their opposition to
homosexuality. As with all their pickets in San Francisco (some of which will be
analyzed as part of this study) the symbolism is just as important at the actual protest
rhetoric.
In looking at the framing of this flier, the first aspect of analysis is the defining of a
problem. The WBC defines the overarching problem that this generation and its children
have been taught that “good is evil and evil is good”. As with the last flier, there is
reference to children being corrupted, but in this instance there is a tone that is more
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generally applicable to all adults and children. While stating the general problem of a
reversal of what it good and what is evil, the more specific problem the WBC is defining
here is the musical Rent and those who will be viewing the show. The WBC is implying
through their flier and planned picket of Rent that those people acting in the musical,
those who are planning to attend the musical, and realistically anyone who has done
either in the past, belong to the group of evildoers. The WBC considers this musical to
part of the problem they are defining within this flier’s frame. By allowing Rent to show
and by allowing people to see what the WBC defines as a “filthy fag play”, the reversal
of what is good and what is evil will continue. The Bible verse of Leviticus 19:17 is used
in the flier as a way to provide substantiation for their diagnosis of the problem: “Thou
shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and
not suffer sin upon him” (Leviticus, 19:17). This verse essentially says that one should
speak out against evil in which others partake so as to not have them suffer in sin. The
WBC sees Rent as an example of evil, and they use this Bible verse as justification for
their picket. They see their “neighbors” partaking in an evil lifestyle, and it is the WBC’s
duty to speak out against them as not to have them continue to suffer in sin.
The second facet of Entman’s framing analysis is diagnosing a cause. The WBC is
charging that American society has “flipped God’s standard on its head, teaching your
children that good is evil and evil is good”. The cause of this is, the WBC argues in this
flier, is a result of a generation corrupted by their parents who have flipped evil and good.
As was discovered in the last flier, again parents who are failing to raise their children
correctly are the cause of this. The WBC is laying the blame to poor parenting that strays
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from the teachings of the Bible, that is to say that if parents did adhere to the word of
God, “filthy fag play[s]” such as Rent would not exist and there were be no problem for
them to attempt to solve. The argument seems to be that evil would be clearly evil, and
good would be clearly good, if parents knew how the Bible instructed they should raise
their children. But since many children are not raised in strict accordance with the Bible
in modern-day American society, the WBC diagnoses the cause to be poor parenting that
has allowed “filthy fag” atrocities to transpire.
An implication of a moral judgment is the third aspect of framing. In this flier, the
rendering of a moral judgment is seen through the interaction of two sections: the Bible
verse being quoted, and the subsequent sentence which says: “In short: you rebels against
God show that you hate each other every time you see your fellow rebels proudly
flaunting their filthy fornication and abominable fag sex acts, and then FAIL to rebuke
them for those sins. God hates you for that!” The verse from Leviticus that is quoted
sets forth the foundation for their moral judgment to be rendered. The verse says one
should speak out against evil in which others partake so as to not have them suffer in sin.
The sentence written by the WBC that follows shows that society is clearly not adhering
to that teaching of the Bible and goes even as far to say that not doing so is rebelling
against God. The WBC has managed to equate watching the musical Rent to a rebellious
act against God. The sentence ends saying “God hates you for that!” This in-your-face
moral judgment is the epitome of WBC protest rhetoric. They seek to sum up a profound
moral judgment in a simple and very effective statement. Using the phrase of “rebel
against God” is a fairly weighted accusation and is indicative of a profound moral
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judgment. So a hypothetical couple heading to see Rent on the night of the WBC’s picket
would be confronted with a group of protestors saying that watching the musical and
failing to speak out against the “filthy fornication and abominable fag sex acts” means
that they are rebels against God. Furthermore, the couple would be told that by not
speaking out against these “evil” wrongdoers, and by not adhering to the teaching of
Leviticus 19:17, they are in turn hated by God. This is the WBC’s moral judgment. This
flier’s frame allows this moral judgment to be at the forefront.
The final aspect of the framing analysis is the suggestion of a possible solution. In
this particular flier, the implied solution is two-fold. The parts of the flier which are most
suggestive of a possible solution are: “WBC will be at the Randall Museum Theatre to
show you brutes and your children the true face of obedience to God” and “…and then
FAIL to rebuke them for those sins”. These two lines are not overt suggestions of a
solution, but they are discrete implications of what could be done. The WBC is saying in
the first line that they will be picketing in order to showcase to the wrongdoers what the
“true face of obedience to God” looks like. As with the previous flier, this seems to be
the proposition of a solution that others should emulate the WBC in order to truly live as
God intends. This, however, is not the strongest suggestion of a solution that the WBC
could arguably give. This is the do-as-I-do solution to a problem which, for argument’s
sake, is actually a viable solution, but in practice may not be the best solution the WBC
could advocate for. The second implication of a solution in this flier is seen in the line
suggesting that when people fail to rebuke others for their sins, such as seeing a “filthy
fag play”, they are hated by God. The implied solution in this is that individuals need to
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stand against what the church views as rebellion against God. The WBC is suggesting in
this instance that if individuals would denounce and rebuke evil sinful acts, that they
could in turn cease to be hated by God. So the suggestion is that engaging in pickets and
communicating messages of hate, which is essentially the be-more-like-us argument,
American society could somehow redeem itself from its “fag”-tolerating ways. The only
solution seems to be based on endorsing the WBC’s messages and becoming the sender
of the “God Hates” message instead of the recipient.
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Figure 3 – January 15, 2010. This WBC flier is slightly atypical in that it does not
announce an upcoming picket, but the WBC releases their “Fateful Fig Find” fliers semiregularly (Westboro Baptist Church, 2010c).
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The third flier selected for analysis differs from the other five in that it does not
specifically announce an upcoming picket. Instead, the flier announces the San Francisco
edition of what the WBC coins as “The Fateful Fig Find” (FFF). These types of fliers are
released from time to time and are disseminated typically when the WBC is visiting an
area but not planning to picket any centers of Jewish faith. The WBC frequently targets
Jews and synagogues as places to picket, but during their trip to San Francisco, they
instead released a FFF. The FFF essentially tries to equate Jews into two categories,
good figs, and evil figs and cites Bible verses as substantiation. The FFF gives criteria
for what a good Jew is and what an evil Jew is. The FFF encourages the “good figs” to
come out from the “reprobate Jews”. These FFF fliers showcase the WBC’s anti-Semite
mentalities and views.
In this FFF flier, the WBC is defining the problem that there are evil Jews in
America and Israel who will not confess that Jews killed Jesus. The WBC labels this as
“the Jews’ proud sin”. This label of proud sin will also be seen later in reference to the
homosexual lifestyle. The first two aspects of framing: defining a problem and
diagnosing a cause overlap in this flier under the section of the flier asking the question:
“What type of fig are you?” The flier delineates what makes a good fig, and what makes
and evil fig in the section, and it is here that the details of defining a problem and
diagnosing a cause are seen. According the WBC, a good fig would “confess that Jews
killed Jesus, and repent and mourn that grievous sin”. Additionally, the flier indicates a
good Jew would also “recognize that Israel is doomed because of the Jews’ proud sin”.
The flipside, that which makes an evil fig, indicates that a “reprobate Jew” would “loudly
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proclaim that you’re entitled to land you stole in your disobedience”, and would be
“proud of the bloody butcher’s apron known as the Israeli flag”. It can be seen through
these characterizations of good and evil figs how exactly the WBC is defining the
problem and how they are diagnosing the cause. The main problems as defined by the
frame of this flier are that Jews killed Jesus and will not “repent… that grevious sin” and
that Israel exists as an essentially murderous nation on stolen land. The fliers refers to
the Israeli flag as a “bloody butcher’s apron” and cites that Jews reside on that was stolen
in disobedience. The diagnosis of the cause of these problems is that Jews will not admit
their wrongdoings and will not repent for their sins. All of the charges are deeply
blasphemous and this type of protest rhetoric and hate speech against Jews is typical of
the WBC. While the church’s main charge is against homosexuals, they are equally
hostile towards other faiths.
The third aspect of framing is the implication of a moral judgment. As is typical of
their fliers, the WBC uses Bible verses to substantiate their claims and give insight into
what type of moral judgment they are making. The Bible chapter cited in this flier is
Jeremiah 24. There are two sets of verses – one for the good figs, and one for the evil
figs. The verse for the good figs says: “And I will give them an heart to know me, that I
am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return
unto me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7). This first verse says that God will
provide them with a heart to know Him, and that upon doing so, they shall return to Him
and be his people. The verses for the bad figs say:
And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their
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hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall
drive them. And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them,
till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers”
(Jeremiah 24:9-10).
This second set of verses, which describes the evil figs, says that they shall essentially be
wiped from His land with whatever means possible for the pain they caused. These two
sets of verses encapsulate the moral judgment being rendered by the WBC. The flier
indicates Jews have a choice. They can either admit wrongdoing and repent sin, or they
can suffer the fate of the Bible verse and be washed from the Earth. This judgment can
also be seen by the labels being given to the two types of Jews: good and evil. The WBC
is classifying the issue as black and white and is assigning a moral judgment to all Jews
based upon their decision to be either good or evil. For the WBC, the Jews have a
choice, and based upon that choice, they are being morally judged as good or evil.
The final aspect of framing is the suggestion of a remedy. Unlike many of the other
fliers that are being analyzed as part of this study, in this flier, the WBC is suggesting
clearly and concisely the remedy to the problem. The WBC has outlined in its section of
what makes a good fig how Jews can come to save themselves. The flier indicates that a
good fig would “confess that Jews killed Jesus, and repent and mourn that grievous sin”.
Additionally, good figs should recognize that Israel is doomed and stop pretending to eat
Kosher. By following these steps, the flier appears to indicate that Jews could be
dissolved of their sinful and reprobate status thereby solving the problem of the “Jews’
proud sin”. Beyond this, the WBC even provides a link to their JewsKilledJesus.com
website and instructs the good figs to “repent and mourn your grievous sins against God”.
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The flier ends saying: “God hates reprobate Jews! Come out from them, good figs!”
Instead of classifying all Jews as doomed and hated by God, in this flier, the WBC clearly
suggests a remedy and even encourages the good figs to come out.
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Figure 4 – January 16, 2010. This WBC flier announces their planned picket of the U.S.
District Court, which is considering the validity of California’s ban on same-sex marriage
(Westboro Baptist Church, 2010c).
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Another venue at which the WBC frequently pickets is government buildings and
occasionally political events (Anti-Defamation League, n.d.; Drain & Phelps, 2000;
Jones, 2007; O’Connor & Theroux, 2007; Westboro Baptist Church, 2010a). The
following flier is an example of this. This flier was released on January 16, 2010 and
announces the WBC’s plan to picket the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The
church does not shy away from political and government criticism and is instead actively
involved. One of the WBC’s websites is even titled BeastObama.com.
The problem being defined in this flier, which is the first aspect of framing analysis,
is the possible legalization of same-sex marriage. At the time this picket was being
planned, the trial over the validity of Proposition 8, California’s constitutional
amendment defining marriage between one man and one woman, was being reviewing by
Justice Vaughn Walker at the U.S. District in San Francisco (McKinley, 2010). The
WBC is alleging in the flier that gays are slowly getting their way. The flier says: “The
federal court is the perfect place for fags to go to complete their utter chokehold on this
cursed nation”. This would indicate that allowing gay marriage would be awarding to the
gay community something that would complete the gay community’s attempt to have the
nation in a “chokehold”. The WBC sees allowing same-sex marriage as a culmination of
the gay-agenda, which is a central problem in American society. The WBC started its
picketing in 1995 trying to get gay men from meeting for sex in a park (Jones, 2007), so
allowing “fags” to marry 15 years later is just the end to a long chain of events. The
WBC arguably sees the GLBT community as a plague on this nation, and in this flier, the
topic of allowing same-sex marriage is clearly the problem being defined by the frame.
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The second aspect of Entman’s framing analysis is the diagnosis of a cause. In this
particular flier of the planned picket at the U.S. District Court, the cause is two-fold
according to the church. The flier states that “this doomed nation has become the hold of
every foul spirit & the cage of every unclean and hateful bird (Rev. 18:2) – think raping
priests, murdered babies, & rampant fags”. In this instance, the Bible verse is woven into
a statement instead of a direct quotation. The Bible verse in its entirety reads: “And he
cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is
become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every
unclean and hateful bird” (Revelations 18:2). With the WBC’s interpretive statement of
this Bible verse, they are diagnosing the cause of possibly allowing gay marriage as a
result of an American nation in decline. The flier indicates the United States has become
a sort of sanctuary for “foul spirits” and all that is unclean and hateful towards God. The
WBC says this citing it as a summary of the Bible verse Revelations 18:2. The church
then cites three very specific examples of these foul, unclean, and hateful aspects of
American society. The flier gives three examples: the rapes and molestations of children
by Catholic priests, abortions, and the numerous “fags”. All three of these are, and have
been, “controversies” in the United States, and the WBC is using these three issues as
examples of a nation in decline. U.S. society as a nation in decline is the cause of the
problem of even contemplating gay marriage, and the WBC goes further than it typically
does as to give examples of what it considers to be the cause. In this particular flier the
cause is not simply cited, it is backed up with examples as to provide evidence and
justification. Beyond this, the flier suggests a second cause: “federal judges pretend they
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can break off the bands of God’s law by giving civil rights to filthy, proud sin”. In the
eyes of the WBC, the Bible explicitly states same-sex relations to be an abomination
(Drain & Phelps, 2000). This is what the flier is calling “God’s law”. The WBC believes
“God gave you federal judges power for a moment” and that the judges are going against
the explicit will of God in awarding the civil right of same-sex marriage to those who are
living a life of “filthy” and “proud sin”. Gay marriage goes against the Bible, and the
WBC feels judges have no business meddling in a sort of supreme law in which they
have no jurisdiction. The causes of the problem (same-sex marriage), as defined by the
frame of this flier, are a nation in decline and judges who disobey God’s law.
The third aspect of framing is the implication of a moral judgment. In this flier, the
firm moral judgment is one against not only same-sex marriage, but against the “fag”
lifestyle in general. By referring to “fags” as such, there is an explicit message of antigay sentiment given that it is considered by many to be a slur (Pascoe, 2005). But the
WBC goes well beyond simply using the word, as the flier cites “fags” as “filthy, proud
sin” and implies that by affording gays the civil right of gay marriage it would give the
GLBT community an endorsement to “parade their filth down Main Street & demand that
all applaud and bow down”. This is a fairly clear indication that the WBC is rendering a
moral judgment that gays are not only second-class citizens, but that they are “filth” and
do not deserve the right to marry. It was established in the prior section of this analysis
that the WBC feels the issue of “fag” marriage to denounced by God. For the purposes of
this section, that belief is the basis for their moral judgment.
The final aspect of framing to analyze with this flier is the suggestion of a remedy
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to the problem. Again, this is where the WBC may fall short. In this instance, the WBC
does little to imply a solution or a remedy and instead simply states what they believe is
going to happen. The flier makes two assertions that exemplify this. The first is the
acknowledgment of: “You WILL have fag marriage”. While the WBC virulently protests
against gays and blames the American decline on the tolerance of homosexuality, the
church seems to concede in this flier that gay marriage is an inevitability. Instead of
suggesting that concerned American citizens rally against gay marriage or suggesting
some sort of action against what they consider to be a grievous act against the will of
God, the WBC instead says flatly that it will happen. The second assertion that shows the
WBC is stating what will happen instead of suggesting a solution is toward the end of the
flier: “God gave you federal judges power for a moment; He will repay you to your face
for eternity for abusing that power to pompously promote perversion! You can stick your
14th Amendment in His face & see where that get you”. Here again the WBC seems to
concede an inevitability. Instead of suggesting the removal of judges who defy God’s
will, the flier suggests that the federal judges will grant same-sex marriage rights, and
that they will be judged in the afterlife for their blatant acts of disobeying God. The flier
indicates the judges will be repaid for promoting “perversion” and that no law of man
will help them in the end. The two examples of the WBC’s wait-and-see method to the
problem can in some ways be interpreted as a possible remedy. By suggesting that gay
marriage will be allowed and that God will punish judges for their acts, the WBC is in a
way suggesting that America heed to their warnings. The flier is suggesting: listen to us
now, or else this will happen. While this is more of an implicit remedy that an overt
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solution, it can still be seen as part of the frame of this flier.
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Figure 5 – January 28, 2010. This WBC flier announces the funeral protest, the type of
picket that has generated the most publicity, of Lance Corporal Jeremy Kane (Westboro
Baptist Church, 2010c).
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This flier was selected for two reasons: it represents an example of a flier from the
time period when the WBC was protesting in the San Francisco Bay area, and it is a flier
announcing the picket of a military funeral protest. For these two reasons, this is a very
important flier to include in this analysis. The funeral protests of fallen military
personnel have become the hallmark of the WBC, and it is these protests that have
generated the most media attention and backlash from the American public. No analysis
of the WBC would be complete without including a funeral protest flier. This flier was
released on January 28, 2010, while the WBC was in San Francisco picketing at some of
the locations from the fliers already analyzed. The flier announces the planned picket of
Jeremy Kane in New Jersey, but also includes criticism of the Patriot Guard Riders
(PGR). The PGR is an organization that was founded in 2005 in direct response to the
WBC’s rampant funeral protests. The PGR has multiple branches across the country and
is composed of motorcycle riders who create a physical and noise barrier at funerals. The
PGR states that they attend funerals of fallen military personnel as invited guests and
shield the mourning family against unwanted protestors (Patriot Guard Rider, 2010). The
PGR have been spotted at numerous funerals revving their motorcycle engines and
carrying large American flags to successfully drown out the verbal protest rhetoric of the
WBC and to obstruct the visuals of their picket signs. So this flier delves into two areas:
announcing the picket of a funeral, and speaking out against those who try to restrict the
WBC’s First Amendment protected protesting activities.
The analysis of the definition of a problem and diagnosis of a cause are again
intertwined in this flier. The defining of a problem is an implicit message in this case,
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while the cause is explicitly stated. The problem is addressed in the title of the flier and
is one of the WBC’s most well-known statements, “God Hates America”. The flier also
states the same problem in a different way later in the flier when it says: “God is now
America’s enemy, and God Himself is fighting against America”. As was addressed
earlier in this study, the WBC believes that IEDs are now killing American soldiers
because the church was attacked by an IED in 1995 in response to the WBC’s anti-gay
pickets. The church’s primary message, that God is punishing American for its tolerance
of homosexuality, is a result of this. So in this flier, the problem is exactly this – that
America is being punished by God. The cause of this problem is stated in the flier when
the church says: “These soldiers are dying for the homosexual and other sins of
America”. This is classic WBC rhetoric, and this flier is the epitome of the WBC’s
message framing. The flier identifies the problem as directly related to the funeral picket
– soldiers are dying at the hand of an angry God. And the flier diagnoses the cause of
these deaths: American tolerance of sins including homosexuality. This flier also
addresses a problem that is directly related to the church and its picketing activities. The
flier’s framing identifies the problem of attempted restrictions on the WBC’s protests.
“This message to be preached in respectful, lawful proximity to the memorial”. By
including this as part of the flier, which is atypical when compared to the other fliers
analyzed in this study, the WBC is identifying restrictions to their protests as a problem.
This is corroborated by the fact that the flier dedicates an entire paragraph to an
organization that tries to do exactly that. The PGR try to restrict the WBC’s messages
from reaching the intended audience by means of visual blockades of American flags,
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and auditory interference in the form of motorcycle engine noise. The WBC feels, as
exhibited in this flier, that is wrong.
The WBC renders moral judgments in this flier in a profound way: “Lance Cpl.
Kane gave his life for the Constitutional right of the WBC to warn America. To deny us
our First Amendment rights is to declare to the world that Lance Cpl. Kane died in vain;
and that America is a nation of sodomite hypocrites”. These two sentences are very
weighted and address the two problems identified earlier in a combined way. The WBC
manages to flip their intrusive funeral picket into a sort of homage to the deceased
soldier. It is being argued in this flier that the deceased soldier died protecting the
WBC’s right to picket his funeral. By doing this, the WBC renders a moral judgment
against the friends and family of Jeremy Kane, and the PGR. In order to address any
outrage that may exist toward the WBC as a result of their picket of this funeral, the
church states that if they are not afforded their right to protest, then the death of Jeremy
Kane was in vain. Beyond this, the WBC states that America then becomes “a nation of
sodomite hypocrites”. This sentence serves not only to render a moral judgment on any
attempts to restrict their picketing, it renders moral judgment on the homosexual sex act
against which they picket. This particular frame is extremely effective in addressing both
of the identified problems in one fell swoop. In its more traditional style, the WBC also
uses a Bible verse of Psalms 127:1 to render its moral judgment: “Except the Lord build
the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman
waketh but in vain” (Psalms 127:1). This Bible verse says that if God is not helping to
build the house or watch over the city, then man’s attempt to do so it to no amends. The
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idea here is that since God is “fighting against America” and any attempt to better our
nation or progress forward is futile because God is not on America’s side anymore. The
implication is that this is caused by (as discussed earlier) the American tolerance of sin
like homosexuality. Another area where the WBC’s moral judgment can be seen is in the
final sentence of the flier which is rather profane: “Military funerals are pagan orgies of
idolatrous blasphemy where they pray to the dunghill gods of Sodom and play taps to
fallen fools in Hell”. The WBC indicates here that the funeral of Jeremy Kane is
blasphemous to God because it is coming from people who are part of an America that is
pitted against God. This serves to underscore the same judgment being made that “God
Himself is fighting America” and attempts to mourn the dead or “build the house” are
futile because America is a doomed nation of “sodomite hypocrites”. In this flier, not
only is the implication of a moral judgment fundamental to the flier’s framing, it is very
representative of the WBC’s protest rhetoric overall. This type of flier is the epitome of
the WBC and their core message that America is a doomed nation punished by God for it
tolerance of homosexuality.
The final aspect of framing is the suggestion of a remedy. The main remedy here
appears to simply be for the funeral attendees to allow the WBC to picket and to listen to
their warning. The WBC gives special attention in the flier to those (like the PGR) who
attempt to restrict their picketing activities. When the flier says “this message to be
preached in respectful, lawful proximity to the memorial”, and “to deny us our First
Amendment rights is to declare to the world that Lance Cpl. Kane died in vain,” the
WBC is indicating that what they’re doing is necessary, lawful, and should not be
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impeded. There is an implication that the funeral’s attendees owe it to the Jeremy Kane
to allow the WBC’s picket so that his death was not in vain. While this type of guilt-trip
argument may or may not work with the mourning family and friends of the deceased,
from a framing perspective, this is the proposed remedy from the WBC. The flier
indicates the WBC should be allowed to picket without interruption and that the warning
they give is urgently necessary given that “God Himself is fighting against America”.
It should be noted that this flier is atypical in one regard. The WBC tends to be
comprehensive in its attacks of the people and places it pickets. However, in this flier,
the fact that Jeremy Kane was Jewish, and that his funeral is being held at a synagogue
(Portnoe, 2010) is completely ignored. This analysis can only speculate as to the reason,
but it seems unlikely that the WBC would overlook such and important facet of this
funeral.
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Figure 6 – January 31, 2010. This WBC flier announces another funeral protest,
however this funeral picket is of a Lutheran pastor instead of a fallen soldier (Westboro
Baptist Church, 2010c).
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The final flier that will be analyzed as part of this study was released on January
31, 2010, which has been selected to represent the time period after the WBC completed
its picketing activities in the San Francisco Bay area. This flier announces another
planned funeral protest, but this is not a picket of a military funeral, but instead the
funeral of a student who was studying to become a Lutheran pastor. Ben Larson, 25, was
studying in Port-au-Prince when the 2010 Haitian earthquake struck, and Larson was
crushed under the roof of the seminary school at which he was working (Hubbuch,
2010). In 2009, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of American (ELCA) voted to allow
gay and lesbian-partnered individuals into the clergy (Duin, 2009). While Larson was
not gay, and was not perceived to be gay, the WBC still chose to picket his funeral. This
current WBC flier appears to be less about the death of a student pastor of the ELCA, and
more about the religious organization’s decision to allow gays and lesbians to become
pastors.
The problem being defined by the frame of this flier is that the ELCA ordains
“fags and dykes”. Given that there is not much text to this particular flier, this statement
that the ELCA ordains gay men and women to be part of the clergy is really the only
problem being defined here. In the eyes of the WBC, gays should not be allowed in the
clergy. The WBC does not even believe that women should be preachers for that is
man’s domain (Drain & Phelps, 2000; Westboro Baptist Church Blogs, 2010). In
documentaries about the church, even the younger women attest to this as true. So for the
ELCA to ordain a woman, much less a gay woman, to the clergy is unacceptable.
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The cause of this problem, as defined by this flier, is the ECLA’s decision to
promote diversity and inclusion. The WBC makes a mockery of this by calling the
attempt a guise and saying, “these perverts promote what God calls abomination”. From
the standpoint of the WBC, claims of allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the ministry
to promote the inclusion of all, and to celebrate the diversity of the congregation are
unacceptable in the eyes of God. The WBC uses the Galatians 6:7 verse to give evidence
for this which says that no one should be deceived for God will not be mocked: “Be not
deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”
(Galatians 6:7). This is the church’s charge that even though the ELCA is allowing gays
to serve as pastors in the name of diversity and inclusion that they should not be deceived
into thinking this to be a reality, and that God finds this to be a mockery and will not be
mocked. In addition, this flier also diagnoses the cause for the death of Ben Larson. The
WBC states in the heading that Ben Larson was killed in the Haitian earthquake by an
angry God. In a way, this appears to be the implication that because the ELCA began
ordaining gays and lesbians as pastors in mid-2009, that God caused the earthquake in
Haiti 6 months later (at least partially) to kill a young student of the church who was
training to become a pastor. While this type of argument seems like a long shot to some,
given the church’s history and different beliefs on world events, it coincides with their
typical argument structure. So in this flier, two causes for two problems are being
diagnosed. First, the false pretense of inclusion and diversity is the cause of the problem
of ordaining “fags and dykes”, and second, “an angry God” caused the Haitian
earthquake to kill a young pastor of the ELCA.
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Closely related to the diagnosis of the cause in this case is the third aspect of
framing: the implication of a moral judgment. The WBC bluntly indicates the ECLA’s
places of worship are “whorehouses masquerading” as churches. This is sharp criticism
of not only the ECLA, but also its followers. This is easily interpreted as a judgment on
the moral standing of the ECLA. To call an entire religious organization’s churches
“whorehouses” implies a lack of morals and adherence to the word and teaching of God
on the part of the ECLA. Beyond making this moral judgment against the ECLA, the
WBC indicates that the teachings of the ECLA “have incurred the wrath of God – and the
destruction of this froward generation is imminent”. The WBC is again making a moral
judgment against the ECLA indicating that the type of teachings that have led to
ordaining gay pastors has caused the wrath of God to bear down on America (and by
extension, has caused the Haitian earthquake and the death of Ben Larson).
The final aspect of Entman’s framing analysis is the suggestion of a remedy. In
this final flier, the WBC again falls short of indicating a concrete solution. Only in the
FFF flier was a solution clearly given. In this flier, the solution is discretely implied
through the final part of the heading which states that the funeral protest of Ben Larson
will be done “in religious protest & warning to the living”. In suggesting that their
protest serves as a warning, the WBC is implying that heeding to their warning would be
the solution to the problem. If the ELCA would stop ordaining “fags and dykes” and
adhere to the literal teachings of the Bible, then God would cease to be mocked and
would theoretically lessen or cease His wrath. While the flier does not state this
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explicitly, the flier does indicate the protest is a warning, and adhering to the warning can
be seen as the intended or implied remedy.
This chapter analyzed six fliers from the Westboro Baptist Church. These six
fliers were selected to be inclusive and representative of the typical fliers released by the
church. Methodologically, a framing analysis was utilized based on Entman’s (1993)
four aspects of framing: defining a problem, diagnosing a causing, implying a moral
judgment, and suggesting a remedy. The analytical methodology was used to help better
understand the framing mechanisms of the fliers released around the WBC’s January
2010 trip to the San Francisco Bay area. Chapter four will offer some concluding
remarks, including a discussion of findings from this framing analysis.
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Chapter 4
CONCLUSIONS
This study offered that the Westboro Baptist Church is able to frame their
messages so solidly that, when the fliers are released and re-transmitted, mass media
entities have little room for interpretation and instead disseminate the message with the
WBC’s frame intact. The WBC’s fliers are not ambiguous and instead use framing as a
tool to effectively communicate their messages. This study reviewed the literature on
protest rhetoric and hate speech to facilitate a better understanding of the type of
communication used in the WBC’s fliers. The history of this church and its leader were
detailed to provide context and background for the fliers that were analyzed. Six fliers
from January 2010 were analyzed using Entman’s (1993) four aspects of framing as a
methodology to understand how exactly the fliers are framed. This study will conclude
by detailing the limitations of this particular study, offering some discussion of the
analysis, and suggesting some areas of future research.
Limitations
This study’s most obvious limitation is that it only analyzes a few selected fliers.
The WBC claims have picketed at over 43,000 locations (Westboro Baptist Church,
2010a), and since they typically release at least one flier per picket, it can reasonably be
argued that the WBC has also produced this many fliers. The present study selected six
fliers to be representative of recent types of fliers being released by the WBC. While
diligence was paid in the selection of these specific releases, the study is limited to the
content of these specific fliers. The WBC frequently pickets military funerals, schools,
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government and political establishments, cultural events, and other religious institutions
(Anti-Defamation League, n.d.; Drain & Phelps, 2000; Jones, 2007; O’Connor &
Theroux, 2007; Westboro Baptist Church, 2010a). The fliers selected for this study
mirror these venues and subjects of protest. This study analyzed a flier announcing the
picket of two Texas high schools in order to represent the educational institutions the
WBC pickets. The second flier was from the WBC’s planned picket of Rent, and was
selected in order to encapsulate the various cultural and social events and venues the
WBC frequents. The third flier was the Fateful Fig Find for San Francisco, and this was
selected to represent the WBC’s Jewish establishment pickets. The fourth flier selected
was the WBC’s picket of the U.S. District Court. This flier served to represent the
political and governmental protests the WBC stages. The fifth flier was of a military
funeral protest, and was selected to represent the most infamous of WBC picket
locations. And the final flier was for the funeral of a Lutheran pastor. This flier was
meant to be representative of the WBC’s pickets of other religious institutions and world
events (e.g. the Haitian earthquake). All in all, these fliers were analyzed and considered
broad representations of typical fliers, but due to their specificity of picket, they are
limited in how overarching they can be. This study is limited by its artifact sample, as
many studies are. The conclusions reached in this study are tied to the fliers that were
analyzed. In attempting to truly understand the protest fliers of the WBC, analyses of
more and different types of fliers may yield different results. All of the fliers analyzed in
this study were from January 2010. Fliers from different time periods may yield different
insights into the WBC and could possibly address how the WBC protest rhetoric and
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framing styles have developed over time. A longevity study would be useful in future
research.
Discussion
In considering the analysis portion of this study as a whole, a few general remarks
can be made. First, the only area of Entman’s framing analysis where the WBC falls
short is the area of suggesting a remedy to the problem. Only in one flier did the church
clearly and precisely suggest what course of action should be taken. In the Fateful Fig
Find flier, the WBC offered to the “reprobate Jews” how they could come to save
themselves and what specific acts they must undertake to do so. None of the other fliers
achieved this as well. In the other fliers, the remedy is more of an implied solution that is
not overtly stated. The WBC appears to offer in the majority of its fliers that by watching
the church, and heeding to their warnings, American society may begin to redeem itself.
But even then, this implication is not offered solidly or realistically. For the WBC, this
tendency to fall short on suggesting how American can fix itself may in fact be a tool to
foster an environment in which the WBC is still needed. If the WBC is specific and
deliberate in telling America how to redeem itself for the sin of homosexuality, the
possibility exists that society would do so; and in an America where homosexuality is not
tolerated, the WBC becomes relatively obsolete. This possibility would help to explain
why the analysis of these six fliers largely found the framing aspect of suggesting a
remedy to be generally lacking and weak. With regard to the other three aspects of
framing, the WBC is spot on with its ability to solidly frame is fliers.
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The second conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis is that the WBC relies
upon citing Bible verses, and in some cases offering direct interpretations of these Bible
verses, to diagnose the cause of the identified problem. In each of the fliers, a Bible verse
is cited either by direct quotation or reference. For the WBC, using the Bible verses is a
way to provide evidence for their argument, and lend credibility to their charges. Not
only is the Bible the word of God to the WBC, but it is a readily available text to which
any consumer of their fliers can refer. If the WBC failed to cite the Bible as part of their
fliers, the ability to effectively frame their message, specifically the diagnosis of a cause,
would not be nearly as strong. While their literal interpretation of the various Bible
verses can be argued for or against, the point to note is that the Bible lends them
justification not only for their hate speech, but serves as the foundation for their protest
rhetoric.
A third observation, which can be made from this analysis, is that the issue of
homosexuality is rampant throughout their fliers. Even in the fliers that do not deal with
homosexuality directly, like the picket of the soldier’s funeral, the picket of the Lutheran
pastor, or the FFF, the church manages to weave its anti-gay rhetoric into the mix. This
reliance of making “fags” part of each and every flier is arguably the WBC’s mechanism
to make the “fag” the root of all of American problems. It has been argued throughout
this study, that the WBC’s core message is that America is being punished by God for its
tolerance of homosexuality. Seeing anti-gay hate speech within each and every flier is
evidence that this core message is woven into all of the church’s protest rhetoric and
fliers. In many of the fliers, the “fag” and other sins are typically identified as the
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problem. It is through this repetitious use of “fag”-caused problems that the homosexual
is seen as the WBC’s main problem. The gay problem is part of varying areas of the
framing process. “Fags” are identified in some fliers as the actual problem. In other
fliers “fags” are diagnosed as the cause of some problem. And in some cases, the flier
mainly renders a moral judgment against “fags” and the “fag” lifestyle. By including
“fag” within the various aspects of framing, and throughout each of these analyzed fliers,
it become evident that the homosexual is seen are the core problem, the cause of the
problem, and that which is being judged on moral grounds. From here, the core message
that God is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuals is innately framed into
each and every flier. While the specifics of the fliers may vary, the topics may change,
and the picketing locations may jump from place to place, what does not change is that
basic core message. It is through their solid framing of each and every piece of protest
rhetoric that this message is made difficult to misinterpret. This is the same reason why
the frame is frequently adopted by mass media entities when disseminated to different
audiences.
What this study has ultimately uncovered is that protest rhetoric of the hate
speech type can be communicated effectively by using framing. It is argued by some
scholars that hate speech serves a purpose in society – typically to indicate societal
problems (Bosmajian, 1972b, 1978; Heurmann & Church, 1997; Smith, 1995; Strossen,
1997; Walker, 1994). But at the end of the day, the purpose of communication is to
transmit a message from a sender to a receiver. If that message is of protest nature and
laden with hate speech, certain tools must be used to ensure that the core message
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remains intact when receivers try to sift through the hate speech and try to understand the
message. Framing is a tool that can serve to keep a core message intact even when
muddled with rampant protest rhetoric and hate speech, to which many audiences are not
inclined to listen. The WBC’s fliers are ripe with hate speech and outrageous
accusations, but in using framing to their advantage, they are able to communicate a
message. This study has shown how framing can be used to communicate a protest
message even when that message clearly uses hate speech. While this type of rhetoric
may be dismissed by some recipients as homophobic, anti-Semitic, blasphemous hate
speech, by framing the core message in a solid manner, these recipients are not faced
with having to decipher an ambiguous message. Framing allows protest rhetoric of a
hateful nature to be unambiguous and influences the audience to interpret the message
with the intended frame intact. In considering these findings, there are areas of future
research that need to be explored and developed.
Future Studies
The Westboro Baptist Church is largely absent from academic scholarship. There
is very little research done about this specific group, and there are numerous possibilities
for future research surrounding this organization. This specific group, which is very
vocal and frequently covered in the media, is ripe for study in the communication studies
discipline. From their message creation techniques, to the news content about the church,
to the social impact of that media coverage, the WBC can be studied from many different
angles and perspectives. As was mentioned earlier, in specifically dealing with framing
of the WBC’s fliers, analyzing fliers from different time periods may give insight to if,
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and how, the WBC has changed its message creation and management techniques over
the past decade. Additionally, the recent Supreme Court decision has awarded the WBC
a substantial amount of empowerment. This study has analyzed fliers prior to this
decision, and future studies could use this study as a starting point to see if the WBC’s
fliers change as a result of being emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision. As the
WBC maintains the archives of these fliers online, and will likely continue to do so,
accessing fliers would not prove difficult.
Another possible future study, which would be essentially the next step of this
study, would be to study how exactly the WBC’s frames get adopted by media entities
and in turn disseminated to mass audiences. This study has helped to shed light on the
framing mechanisms within the WBC’s fliers, but a study on how these frames transfer
into news stories would also be prudent. A bridge to this gap would help to understand
the media’s interaction with the WBC, and would bring to light the mechanics of framing
on the part of the WBC, and the framing journalists do when writing news stories about
the church.
What would probably be most interesting as a topic of study about the WBC is
whether or not their protest rhetoric has had any success in stifling the gay-rights
movement. Their opposition to the GLBT community is clear, and their attempts to
inform the American public about the dangers of complacency are valiant. But at the end
of the day, have they had any effect? If not, why? And if so, how? In extrapolating to
the larger sphere, to WBC could be included in a study of fringe groups seeking social
change. In the context of similar groups, has the WBC been able to succeed, and in the
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context of fringe groups seeking social change, how is success measured? The WBC
relentlessly shares its message with the world, but has their dedication made them any
more successful than other similar groups?
Another interesting area of study that relates directly to the WBC’s protest
rhetoric is the various counter-protest activities it has produced. The analysis of this
study recognized one such group, the Patriot Guard Riders, but this is not the only
organization that has sprung up to counter the WBC’s picketing activities. In addition to
counter-groups, the WBC’s picket signs have spurred individual counter-protestors to
make their own creative picket signs. It can be argued that, to a certain extent, the WBC
has produced a community of opponents who shows up at their pickets, donned with their
own “God Hates ___” picket signs, in order to protest the protestors. These instances of
rhetorical battles and picket sign argumentation would be interesting and useful to study.
How an organization can incite counter-movements is important to understanding the
metamorphosis of modern-day hate groups.
The final subject of study that is worthy of mentioning when it comes to future
research on the WBC is the growing trend to attempt to silence the church. Some have
criticized the mass media for covering stories about the WBC. These individuals posit
that by denying the WBC media coverage, society can more effectively silence them out
of relevance. By nature of the WBC’s radical message, they become a newsworthy
subject, but at what cost does awarding press to the church come? In a world where the
WBC is unable to garner mass media attention, would they cease to be recognized? In a
world where everyone ignores the WBC, would they continue to picket? In a world
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where the WBC is silenced, would the parents of fallen soldiers, like Albert Snyder, be
able to put their sons and daughters to rest without worrying about a small church from
Topeka standing across the street holding signs saying “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”
and “God Hates Fags”? Only time will answer these questions, but for now, the
academic community should feel charged to put this rogue church under the microscope
to further our understanding of the phenomenon that goes by the name of the Westboro
Baptist Church.
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