Why is the Westboro Baptist Church Tweeting at Banana 101.5 About Flags?
As far as groups go, there are probably none we find more disgusting than the Westboro Baptist Church. That's why we were surprised and a bit confused when they tweeted at us. Get the story behind what is probably the weirdest social networking exchange we've had as a station.
The internet is an unusual place. Sometimes you write a story that causes all kinds of effects you never foresaw or intended, like that time our simple online song battle turned into an all out feud -- complete with personal attacks and all -- between Black Veil Brides and All That Remains. This situation is a little more complicated, in that the group responding to us is so hated that it seems we're receiving some of the hate intended for them by mere association.
A few weeks ago I wrote a story about the Westboro Baptist Church getting run out of a protest they were holding in Moore, Oklahoma. To be clear, it was giving kudos to those Oklahomans for running those hateful SOBs out of their town. This morning, we were tweeted at by a Westboro Twitter page (@WBCSays) about Moore, Oklahoma and a flag, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to us at first. See the tweet below:
Apparently, their flag reference was in response to a video that was not included in our initial coverage of the story, which showed a WBC member trampling a flag at the Moore, OK rally. Though a bit misguided, some people began responding negatively to the WBC tweet and lumping us in with them. We're not sure if this is because the the unclear wording of the tweet made them think we were in cahoots with the WBC or because they wanted us to see the aftermath of said tweet (it looks like a little of both, really). Either way, we want to be super clear about one thing:
We do not support the Westboro Baptist Church in any way. We think they engage in terrible, hateful activities on a regular basis and we paint them in a negative light, which isn't hard to do, every time we cover a story involving them. Their tweet at us was in response to one such story, in which we called them "cowards" and referred to their agenda as "hateful B.S."
The fact that they tweeted at us is actually somewhat reassuring. It lets us know that at least one of those idiots saw our story and knows that we think they suck. I guess they're the "God Hates Flags" church too.