Fred Phelps, co-founder and pastor of anti-America Westboro Baptist Church died March 17 of an unreleased cause at age 84 in Topeka, KS.

His death, unsurprisingly, was the call for many celebrations. What was surprising was the counter-protest which occurred at the first scheduled Westboro protest since Phelps’ death. When fans of up-and-coming teen popstar Lorde learned Westboro would be picketing there, they created a banner which read, “Sorry for your loss.” Needless to say, that took some class.

If you don’t know what I mean by ‘needless to say,’ you may be unfamiliar with Westboro Baptist Church (which is actually unaffiliated with Baptists). They are, in short, the most widely known hate group in America since the KKK. Their appalling slogans include “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “God hates f*gs,” and “Thank God for 9/11.” You can commonly find any of their approximately 40 members promoting signs with these hate messages scrawled across them at concerts, military funerals or any number of events they deem “unholy.” Their excuse for shoving their twisted ideologies down the throats of grieving families is one we have heard time and time again – they are doing it all in the name of religion. Or so they claim.

Many people, in an effort to explain why a group of people could be so insensitive and inconsiderate, have thrown aside their cover of religion and offered plausible theories. But whether they are doing it for media attention, shock value, money or to simply exercise their right to free speech, these people need to be silenced.

By silenced, I don’t mean they need to be put to death (though you wouldn’t hear many complaining). I mean they need to give up the crusade and at least try to be productive members of society. Or better yet, maybe they should start just by not being destructive members of society. Countless mothers and fathers have lost their honorable soldiers on the battlefield, which is bad enough, but to have members of a hate group come to the funerals of these fallen heroes and say things like “Thank God for dead soldiers” introduces a whole new level of pain. Of course, there are organizations like the Patriot Guard Riders who literally create blockades to shield these families, but they can’t stop the some 50,000 protests that have been conducted. Even worse, these families can’t do a thing about it in the way of legal processes. In the case of Snyder v. Phelps, it was ruled that victims of the Westboro protests cannot sue for emotional trauma due to their right to free speech and peaceful assembly. Rights which are, by the way, guaranteed by the very nation which Westboro has deemed evil.

But other than that, Westboro is really just a laughable organization. Their claim that they want to win souls for God by pointing out the error in almost every American’s ways, yet they are described as the most hated organization in America (and perhaps the world, except for the Taliban). Obviously, they are going about their supposed mission in a very, very wrong way. I don’t know about you, but if I was a gay man, I wouldn’t want to convert to “Westboro’s version of Christianity” and spend an eternity with the people who called me “f*g” and told me that this God I’m turning to hates me. I think there’s a reason more than 80 percent of it’s members are all related…

But ridiculousness aside, we could do without Westboro, but there’s only one way to get rid of them, and that is to simply deprive them of media attention. That’s what they crave. In fact, they even keep track of press releases concerning their protests and post them to their website. If that’s not proof they aren’t even just a little in it for the shock value and attention, I don’t know what is. Keep in mind, I’m not saying this is the perfect solution to end all Westboro activity forever, but it’s a good place to start, along with positive counter-protests like the one previously mentioned.

Now normally I don’t quote the Bible, but it seemed appropriate to leave whatever WBC member that may happen to read this with some fitting advice:

“But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also,” (Matthew 5:39, NIV).