My recommendation for dealing with the Phelps?

Nickel & dime them to death.

Whenever they plan to show up somewhere, have cops on-hand to nail them on each and every last little thing.

Did  one of the adults drop a candy wrapper? He'd better go pick it up and  put it in the trash or else that's a ticket for littering.

Are all of your permits in order to actually protest? Better file at city hall if not.

Stuff like that.

Childish ways of expressing self-righteousness.

Why do you have to "deal" with them at all?  Why don't you just live your life and let them express the way they see it?

 If they were breaking any laws, they would have been dealt with  long ago.

What is tragic- they are functioning under the name of Christ.  Jesus said love your enemies.  By that, I mean these Westboro people seem to have identified the wrong people as their enemy, but if they perceive them as the enemy, they are supposed to love them.

These people obviously don't know my Christ.  They are too cruel to be defined by the Christian name in my opinion.  Yet they give true Christians a black eye.

Love ya', Steve

BetteTheRedde:   Organize it via social media. The kids would love doing it. Meeting the Phelps' hate with love AND humour.

As I recall, that's what Comic Con did.  Nothing says fun like watching Buddy Christ and Boba Fett mocking irrational religious protesters.  :)

And I disagree that being a smartass is childish.  They want to be taken seriously.  They need to learn their real place in life.  After all, mocking them isn't against the law, right?

Mar 22, 2011 -- 11:19AM, arielg wrote:

"Thank God for dead soldiers" is more Christian than blessing them to go and kill. Not nice, but true.  Dead soldiers don't kill anyone.

Whatever the religious or philosophical reasoning, that doesn't make it Christian like to put their families under unnecessary emotional stress and turmoil.  Love ya', Steve

Mar 22, 2011 -- 11:38AM, Christianlib wrote:

Mar 22, 2011 -- 10:39AM, Stephenway wrote:

Mar 22, 2011 -- 10:35AM, Christianlib wrote:

Stephen,

I don't think they are "functioning in the name of Christ."

They may claim to be.  But that doesn't make it true.

It's my understanding that they claim to be a church who worships Christ and are working under the auspices of that church.  Am I wrong.  If not, they are functioning 'under' the name of Christ, but it is not Christ's work, so therefore, their functioning is inappropriately categorized as a church (under the name of Christ) action.  Love ya', Steve

OK,

I didn't understand how you were parsing the term.  It makes sense now.

I think it also falls under "taking the Lord's name in vain," don't you.

I realized my first ambiguity and I must have been in the process of editing it while you were posting.  I understand your point.  Love ya' much, Steve