The wbc has seen every funny, clever, disgusting, and even abhorrent trolling attempt you could possibly imagine. Someone literally bought the house across the street from them years ago and painted it in the colors of the pride flag. Ultimately the church/family is run by lawyers so they would also catalog the more troubling stuff like death threats too. Before the modern era culture wars they were a group that essentially everyone hated. They’re a hardcore Baptist denomination preaching hate so that alienates your leftists and libs, generally, and they took the attitude of “dead soldiers are gods punishment for America allowing lgbt stuff, 9/11 was a gift from god, etc” which alienated the overwhelming majority of the conservative crowd too so they got hate from every angle.
The proper thing to do is continue to let them fade into obscurity. The best thing that ever happened to them was the lawsuits about freedom of speech and the continued media coverage related to their ridiculous messaging. They weren’t stupid either; they recognized 99.99% of the people watching them on cnn or whatever would write them off as extremist kooks. But if 10 million people watch that interview? That 0.01% leave 1,000 potential new members to the flock, with those numbers. And this is where the growth was seen: peak membership was in the era preceding Phelps death, and its waned since. The brainwashed family members are primarily what you see in the time preceding and after (though not exclusively, some people who joined stayed and some family have broken free).
As always, the best way to deal with a troll is ignoring and certainly not giving said troll media exposure to an audience of millions to help them recruit.
The wbc has seen every funny, clever, disgusting, and even abhorrent trolling attempt you could possibly imagine. Someone literally bought the house across the street from them years ago and painted it in the colors of the pride flag. Ultimately the church/family is run by lawyers so they would also catalog the more troubling stuff like death threats too. Before the modern era culture wars they were a group that essentially everyone hated. They’re a hardcore Baptist denomination preaching hate so that alienates your leftists and libs, generally, and they took the attitude of “dead soldiers are gods punishment for America allowing lgbt stuff, 9/11 was a gift from god, etc” which alienated the overwhelming majority of the conservative crowd too so they got hate from every angle.
The proper thing to do is continue to let them fade into obscurity. The best thing that ever happened to them was the lawsuits about freedom of speech and the continued media coverage related to their ridiculous messaging. They weren’t stupid either; they recognized 99.99% of the people watching them on cnn or whatever would write them off as extremist kooks. But if 10 million people watch that interview? That 0.01% leave 1,000 potential new members to the flock, with those numbers. And this is where the growth was seen: peak membership was in the era preceding Phelps death, and its waned since. The brainwashed family members are primarily what you see in the time preceding and after (though not exclusively, some people who joined stayed and some family have broken free).
As always, the best way to deal with a troll is ignoring and certainly not giving said troll media exposure to an audience of millions to help them recruit.