EVEN THE KKK WON'T TAKE THEM

The Westboro Baptist Church would protest Jesus Christ’s burial if they could…

The Boston bombings on Monday April 15^th, 2013 have captured America's attention. Within the past week, there has been an increase in security during major events and sure enough there have been inspired attacks. As for the victims of the Boston bombings, 183 people were brutally injured and three victims were killed. The victims’ names are Krystle Campbell, Lü Lingzi, and Martin Richard; the two women were in their late twenties while the boy was eight years old. (Botelho) Their lives were tragically lost and they deserve an honorable funeral, but not according to one group, who have announced that they will protest the funerals of the victims. This group thanks God for the Boston Marathon Bombs and further claims these attacks were not “senseless act[s] of terrorism,” but a “foretaste of God’s wrath.” (Chumley) This group is of course the Westboro Baptist Church, or the “God Hates Fags” group by most, of Topeka, Kansas.

First established in 1931 by the East Side Baptist Church, later Westboro broke away from the denomination by Pastor Fred Phelps in 1956 and has been transformed into his cult, consisting of mostly his family. Despite their name, they do not belong to either of Baptist World Alliance or the Southern Baptist Convention, both denouncing their ideologies as contradictory of what the Bible teaches us. Since 1991, they have made an active movement against the Lesbian Bisexual Gay & Transsexual community, believing that God is punishing America for their tolerance of homosexuality. As stomach churning it is to hear that someone would dare dishonor the victims of the Boston bombings with their presence at the funeral, the church has been using the funerals of homosexuals, soldiers, and celebrities as a platform for their deranged message. A large majority of people in American is angered and hates the group. Absolutely no sane person, regardless of religious choice or stance on homosexuality, agrees with the church's methods and many are frustrated trying to combat the church's bigotry.

In response to the church's announcement to protest the Boston Marathon victims' funerals, Anonymous, a loosely associated hacktivist group, has infiltrated the church's facebook page and have changed Westboro’s profile page to a parody and also posted comedic videos and memes, backdated some of Westboro’s postings. (Chumley) Anonymous has targeted the church for cyber terror since Westboro announced that they were going to protest the twenty-six victims of the Sandy School shootings, twenty of which were children. As a result, a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) has been issued on Westboro's website, Anonymous stating “We will continuously DDOS until they are forced to put their inbred church tithes to use to pay for bandwidth.” (Roy) Simultaneous to these attacks, they have released the Westboro membership list, with the personal contact information for most Westboro members. (Musil)

Anonymous are not alone in trying to stop the Westboro Baptist Church as the most popular petition created by the White House initiative, with 250,000 signatures, seeks to label the Westboro Baptist Church as an official hate group on December 14^th of last year. (Wing) As a hate group, they will be recognized by the FBI as a group whose "primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization." Along with the FBI, they will be monitored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). There is as well an overwhelming response to revoke the congregation's tax-exemption. (Wing)

Since the congregation has been hosting these protests, measures have been made to ensure the protection of funeral services, starting in the States including Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Arizona. It became a national issue in 2006, when George W. Bush signed the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act, prohibiting protests of the National Cemetery Administration within 300 feet and 60 minutes before or after the service. In August of last year, President Obama signed the Honoring America's Veterans Act, which protected military funerals by saying that the protests could not be held within 300 feet from the funeral and that they could not be held two hours before or after the scheduled time.

The Westboro Baptist Church has been a subject of debate on the issue of the First Amendment. Time and time again, their acts have been protected by free speech as it is a “matter of public concern, including the issues of homosexuals in the military, the sex-abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, and the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens." How long can the church be protected under the First Amendment, especially as a newly labeled hate group. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett, of the Snyder v. Phelps trial, instructor urged the jurors to decide "whether the defendant's actions would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, whether they were extreme and outrageous and whether these actions were so offensive and shocking as to not be entitled to First Amendment protection". The First Amendment does not entitle a U.S. Citizen full freedom of speech as in the 1941 Supreme Court Case of Chaplinksy v. New Hampshire, where a Jehovah’s Witness called a city marshal certain personal slurs and obscene utterances in a public place which had the potential for violence resulting from their utterance. He was arrested and convicted under a state law for violating a breach of the peace.

Though the group denies it, they have been accused of seeking only attention and publicity. Another theory suggests that they are a straw man group, a weak argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. One has to consider what their motivation is if not attention. Though they are not associated with any denomination, their intolerance of homosexuality has turned people off to religion, who mistakenly associate their views with that of the Christian denomination. Even the Ku Klux Klan calls the group “hatemongers” back in 2011. Whatever their purpose, people are furious with the group and want them stopped. As the years go on, it is a guarantee that the United States will become intolerant to this bigot organization and will continue to limit their effect on people.

SMOKING TO BETTER HEALTH

“SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.” This warning is printed on every packet of cigarettes to remind people of the dangers of smoking. All throughout elementary and secondary education, teachers and health organizations are there to educate students on the dangers of smoking. The picture they paint is not a particularly flattering one, an exaggerated one at that. Smoking causes the body to turn yellow: first the teeth, then the fingers, and then finally the rest of the body will follow suite. As well, the body’s lungs will become tar and the body will be nothing more than a cindered corpse sitting in a wheel chair, breathing through an oxygen tank and talking through an electric box. These are all exaggerations to be sure, however, the fact remains that smoking has negative side effects and fatal consequences. With that said, a large portion of the population continues to smoke despite these warnings. Why would someone continue to use a drug which has no positive effects and would eventually kill a person after continual use?

The negative effects of smoking are prevalent to the point that the positive effects of smoking are seemingly nonexistent, boiling down to giving into peer-pressure or to win popularity contests. While these attribute to the number of smokers, non-smokers would be surprised to hear the positive effects of smoking. In 1994, Christopher Hitchens writes in an article for Vanity Fair, “Cigarettes improve my short-term concentration, aid my digestion, make me a finer writer and a better dinner companion, and in several other ways prolong my life.” Tobacco makes a smoker more alert, relaxed, concentrated, and gives a mild euphoria. Smokers engage in smoking as a means of self-therapy, attributing to staving off withdrawals according to anti-smoking organizations.

Three health analysts studied the effects of nicotine and tobacco on aspects of human performance, led by Stephen Heishman of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethea Kleykamp of Johns Hopkins University and Edward Singleton of Stevenson University. The study reviewed fifteen years of published effects of these drugs and studied both non-smokers and smokers alike. They found that cigarettes benefit motor skills, attention, and memory. The researchers explain, “The significant effects of nicotine on motor abilities, attention, and memory likely represent true performance enhancement because they are not confounded by withdrawal relief. The beneficial cognitive effects of nicotine have implications for initiation of smoking and maintenance of tobacco dependence.”

Smoking as well alleviates symptoms of mental illnesses according to an article in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews in 2005, which studies the smoking habits of schizophrenics who use their smoking as self-medication. “Nicotine found in cigarettes reduces psychiatric, cognitive, sensory, and physical effects of schizophrenia, and also provides relief of common side effects from antipsychotic drugs.” (Russo)

Studies as well indicate that non-smokers are more at risk of both Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease than smokers. Doctor Laura Fratiglioni of Huddinge University Hospital in Sweden states, "Cigarette smokers are 50% less likely to have Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease than are age and gender-matched nonsmokers... cigarette smoking exerts an undefined, biologic, neuroprotective influence against the development of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease." (Russo) Studies indicate a temporal relationship between smoking and reduced risk of Parkinson's disease and these effects ware off after smokers quit. Dr. Tanner's group continued to see significant differences when dose was calculated until 10 years or 20 years prior to diagnosis. They conclude that this finding refutes the suggestion that individuals who smoke more are less likely to have Parkinson's disease because those who develop symptoms quit smoking. The inverse association of smoking dose and Parkinson's disease can be attributed to environmental, and not genetic, causes with near certainty. (www.forces.org)

Nicotine as well acts as an anti-inflammatory agent and decreases the risk in ulceraltive colitis, a potentially severe digestive disorder, according to the University Hospital of Wales. These effects as well lower rates of allergic rhinitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema, and food allergies, according to a study in Sweden consisting of two generations of Swedish adults and children. (Russo) Studies even show that smoking prevents gum disease, something the anti-smoking groups have used as evidence against smoking. In some strange cases, smoking has either increased or had no effect at all on the lifetime expectancy of a smoker.

With all these benefits of smoking, it does not warrant for everyone to grab a packet of cigarettes and smoke to better health. The warnings and negative attributes of smoking tobacco are still prevalent. This is to recognize that there are both positive and negative effects to each drug and that everyone should exercise discretion when using such drugs. The anti-smoking ads, though well intent, are in their essence propaganda. As described before, the benefits of smoking seemed nonexistent and seemed as though these special interest groups wanted to keep them a secret. People should be well advised of both the positive and negative effects of not only cigarettes but other drugs and pharmaceuticals as well. To those researchers, more studies should be performed and widely accessible to the average citizen to learn more about the effects these drugs.