The Westboro Baptist Church - Making Money via Hate and Litigation?

[K9]

One thing I have always wondered is how the WBC manages to fund itself, from the documentaries and such that I have seen they hardly seem poor by any stretch.

I wound up reading this article, which seems to be entirely speculative, but superficially plausible. I don't know how much the WBC makes off suing people, or whether it would even be possible to finance an operation by doing this. Does anyone else think this is plausible?

[Comstar]

It's certainly evil enough.

The trick would be to do something about him at Comic-Con. You'll be dressed up like a super hero, and punching him in the face would result in "who was that masked man?".

[SnakeCharmer]

Does anyone else think this is plausible?

With the shit laws and shitbag lawyers we have in this country?  How many commercials have you seen where they (shitbag lawyers) don't charge a fee unless they collect?

Absofuckinglutely.

[Sky]

Never underestimate the amount of money gullible people fork over to churches. What a fucking racket, one of the best on the planet.

[Kitsune]

It's been fairly common knowledge for a while now that Mr. Phelps is running a game.  And it doesn't matter if the person who punches him in the face gets away with it, the real targets of his litigation are the city that he's standing in when he's punched, who are obligated to protect his safety as a legal protester.

[Merusk]

Does anyone else think this is plausible?

With the shit laws and shitbag lawyers we have in this country?  How many commercials have you seen where they (shitbag lawyers) don't charge a fee unless they collect?

Absofuckinglutely.

What Kitsune said, this has been their purpose for some time now.  The rest is just a dog and pony show to get someone to react.   I thought they were their own lawyers most of the time as well.

[Paelos]

They are tax exempt, so they are required to file a 990 return yearly. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to figure out where their revenue comes from in that regard.

[K9]

I'd have no idea how to look into that, and not the greatest inclination to go start poking around in their business. Thanks for the responses though, this perspective was a rather new one to me, so I wasn't sure whether it was complete bollocks or not.

[Khaldun]

It's an interesting angle. On the surface of it, possible in a way. Kind of an exotic version of an insurance scam or something. Bears some thinking.

[MahrinSkel]

It's certainly plausible.  You'd need to look into how often they sue, *who* they sue, and how often they settle (finding patterns in how much they settle for would be good, but it's probably under NDA).

--Dave

[Abagadro]

These idiots are coming to my town as they leave Arizona. No funerals, just going after several of the churches around here.

[Kitsune]

Eventually someone's going to realize that if they really wanted to perform some violence upon these people, the way to do it would be to not jump them at a protest, but to wait until afterwards and throw them a blanket party some night when they're home.  The only person they could sue then would be the one actually committing the assault.

[Paelos]

Eventually someone's going to realize that if they really wanted to perform some violence upon these people, the way to do it would be to not jump them at a protest, but to wait until afterwards and throw them a blanket party some night when they're home.  The only person they could sue then would be the one actually committing the assault.

Eventually someone is just going to kill one of them. That'll take the wind out of their sails.

[Ard]

That is not how martyrdom works. 

[Paelos]

That is not how martyrdom works. 

Heh, I'm not sure where you're going with that.

[Merusk]

That is not how martyrdom works. 

Heh, I'm not sure where you're going with that.

He means that whomever got killed would be a martyr for the cause.  The death of a martyr doesn't not cause the rest to repent their ways and abandon the project. You should know that.

Of course that assumes there's an actual religious angle in play and they're not just trolling for money.

[Paelos]

Yeah, you can only be a martyer if people actually believe the shit you're spouting.

I get the feeling this is just a cash-scam as well. People won't do it if they think they'll get killed. They'll find another scam.

[Ard]

Even if it's just a cash scam, which I'd bet on for the most part, although there are surely a few true believers in the pack, I would almost certainly bank on them already having contingency plans for someone being injured and/or killed.  That's their biggest payday, and their biggest opportunity to attention whore on a national level.  If one of them gets killed, they win.

To quote Wargames, "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? "  

[Paelos]

Even if it's just a cash scam, which I'd bet on for the most part, although there are surely a few true believers in the pack, I would almost certainly bank on them already having contingency plans for someone being injured and/or killed.  That's their biggest payday, and their biggest opportunity to attention whore on a national level.  If one of them gets killed, they win.

To quote Wargames, "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? "  

Maybe, although I'm not sure how they make boatloads of cash off a dead member acting as a non-profit. Seriously, you'd have to find some pretty crazy jurors to convict.

[01101010]

Even if it's just a cash scam, which I'd bet on for the most part, although there are surely a few true believers in the pack, I would almost certainly bank on them already having contingency plans for someone being injured and/or killed.  That's their biggest payday, and their biggest opportunity to attention whore on a national level.  If one of them gets killed, they win.

To quote Wargames, "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? "  

Unless the victim was killed my a mentally ill person with a gun.

[Nerf]

So as a legal protester of whateverthefuckthefeellike, the police have a duty to protect them from harm and they can sue if the police fail in that respect, but as a private citizen minding my own goddamned business and trying to live life, the supreme court says that the police have no duty to protect me?

What.The.Fuck.

I was going to say some shit to get this thrown into politics, but instead I'll just post this picture.

[Lantyssa]

The police would protect you.  However, the church members aren't the one throwing punches, they're just using the most vile inflammatory speech possible.  When the police fail to protect them, they have a civil suit ready to happen.

They are also a small group.  When someone finally decides enough is enough, there won't be much of an organization left.  I'm surprised it hasn't happened already, really.  Protesting military funerals sounds like a good way to end up in one yourself.

[Nerf]

The police would protect you.  However, the church members aren't the one throwing punches, they're just using the most vile inflammatory speech possible.  When the police fail to protect them, they have a civil suit ready to happen.

They are also a small group.  When someone finally decides enough is enough, there won't be much of an organization left.  I'm surprised it hasn't happened already, really.  Protesting military funerals sounds like a good way to end up in one yourself.

They might protect me, if they happen to be at the right place in the right time, but they have no legal duty to do so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html

Published: June 28, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 27 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.
...

So on what basis can these assholes sue a city/town for failing to protect them from some random person's impulsive attack if someone who has a restraining order against a specific person with a violent history has no such protection?

The Supreme Court is pretty clear on it - the only person responsible for your safety is you, and relying on the government to watch your ass just means you get them show up and take some pictures of your body when it's all over.

[NowhereMan]

I'd guess if it's a registered protest the police have some sort of duty to keep the peace and protect them, likely to prevent the police in hicksville somewhere deciding to be on a coffee break when a march in support of the Islamic community rounds the corner to find a mob of angry rednecks with nooses. At least I'd guess that's the case and why it might differ from the police's responsibility towards a private citizen out minding their own business.

Although I have no idea regarding the law on this but clearly they have some sort of grounds to sue or they wouldn't keep fucking doing it.

[Abagadro]

Claims against governments would likely be for issues related to denial of permits or interference with their protest. Assault would result in claims against the people actually doing the assaulting.

[Khaldun]

Hm. Trying to understand the specifics of that Supreme Court ruling.

If a cop is watching me talk in public with someone, and the person shouts loudly, "I'm going to assault this guy", acts in a generally disorderly way, puts on some brass knuckles, and then I call out to the cop that I'm afraid of being attacked, the cop doesn't have any obligation to act until I get slugged? The cop at least has the discretion to intervene, right? The Court doesn't say, "Police can't do anything at all to maintain order", yes?

What happens if I can prove that the cops in a town protect some people from assault and not other people? Say, if they'll always protect white people from being assaulted, but always allow a black person to be assaulted? Would I have a civil rights complaint that could produce a monetary judgment in my favor in a civil case? If so, that might be how a group like Westboro could make a case: that the cops showed some inclination to allow them to be assaulted while protecting others.

[Nerf]

Hm. Trying to understand the specifics of that Supreme Court ruling.

If a cop is watching me talk in public with someone, and the person shouts loudly, "I'm going to assault this guy", acts in a generally disorderly way, puts on some brass knuckles, and then I call out to the cop that I'm afraid of being attacked, the cop doesn't have any obligation to act until I get slugged? The cop at least has the discretion to intervene, right? The Court doesn't say, "Police can't do anything at all to maintain order", yes?

What happens if I can prove that the cops in a town protect some people from assault and not other people? Say, if they'll always protect white people from being assaulted, but always allow a black person to be assaulted? Would I have a civil rights complaint that could produce a monetary judgment in my favor in a civil case? If so, that might be how a group like Westboro could make a case: that the cops showed some inclination to allow them to be assaulted while protecting others.

IANAL, but I've read quite a bit on this, heres my take on it from various summaries/law blogs/etc/etc:

The court doesn't say 'Police can't do anything at all to maintain order', it says 'The police have no duty or obligation to maintain order.'

That's been their stance for awhile, the case I linked was a gal trying to get around the original ruling because she had an order of protection from a court.  As I understand it, they basically tried to get around the previous rulings on the grounds that those included some language involving 'the general public' or somesuch, and they argued that because she had a court order of protection, the police had a statutory duty to act.
The supreme court said no, and basically further clarified their previous rulings to say "The police *may* protect you, but if they don't, it's your fucking problem."

In the above thing, the case would likely be thrown out on the grounds that police don't 'allow' anyone to be assaulted or any other law broken, nor do they have any sort of duty whatsoever to actively prevent laws from being broken in any way - their job is to enforce the law.  You can't enforce the law until it's broken, so what *could* they do?

Now, if you're saying they sat there and watched black people get up and failed to intervene once the assault started, or refused to detain or arrest people who assaulted black people, you would probably have a case, but for entirely different reasons.

TLDR; The police are there to take a report when it's over, and maybe arrest someone if it's not too much work for them - if you think they are actually going to prevent something from happening or miraculously show up to save you once something does happen, you're going to be on the receiving end of a very painful reality check if you do ever need them.