If You Ignore Them, They Go Away
Posted on | December 28, 2005
I do not get why everyone is suddenly giving Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Cult so much attention. They have always been there and will probably continue to be around for quite some time since none of the cult’s members seem bent on pulling their heads out of their asses anytime soon.Before Iraq and before the world even knew Matthew Shepard existed, the Westboro Baptist Cult has been there along with their sole purpose in life of spreading the word about the “evils” of homosexuality on his God Hates Fags website. People started paying attention to the cult when it announced its intention to hold an anti-gay protest at the funeral of Matthew Shepard who died of his injuries after being beaten and tied to a fence.
Because of the publicity surrounding Shepard’s beating and death, naturally the Westboro Baptist Cult rode that wave with their little “protest” and have been riding it ever since. Of course now that Matthew has been gone over seven years now they had to find something new and George W. Bush handed them that on a silver platter with the war in Iraq. As if protesting the funeral of a young man who died as a result of two animals’ hatred was not bad enough, Phelps and his cult have now decided to start holding their protests at the funerals of soldiers who have been killed in active duty.
What I do not get is why any continues to pay this obviously disturbed family any attention. What bugs me more than these protests of Phelps and company is the “counter-protests” that crop up whenever the cult shows up someplace. I really wish those would stop because they are comprised of individuals who are feeding the Westboro Baptist Cult exactly what they want and validating them.
It basically comes down to basic principals of behaviorism. When the cult shows up to protest something, the counter-protests provide them with positive reinforcement since people are showing up specifically because of them. This just encourages them to keep it up. Now if people just started ignoring the cult, they just end up wasting time, money, and effort in their little protests. Not only that, the removal of their encouraging counter-protests is actually a negative punishment since the validation and attention they used to get is now taken away.
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