
Westboro Baptist Church is a U.S. religous group headed by Fred Phelps and based in Topeka, Kansas. It runs the website GodHatesFags.com[1], and GodHatesAmerica.com, and other websites expressing condemnation of homosexuals, Roman Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Sweden, Canada, and other groups. The organization is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League,[2] and classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[3][4] The group has achieved national notoriety in recent years due to their picketing of funeral processions for soldiers killed in combat, which functions as an extension of the Phelps' anti-United States beliefs.
While its members identify themselves as Baptists, the church is an independent Baptist church not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations. The church describes itself as following Primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles.
The church bases its work around the belief expressed by its best known slogan and the address of its primary website, "God hates fags", and expresses the opinion, based on its Biblical exegesis, that nearly every tragedy in the world is linked to homosexuality – specifically society's increasing tolerance and acceptance of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. It maintains that God hates homosexuals above all other kinds of "sinners"[5] and that homosexuality should be criminalized, punishable by the death penalty.[6]