Editing Westboro Baptist Church (section)

===Counter protests===
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter_protest Counter protests] are often organized to be held at sites that Westboro Baptist pickets. In some cases counter protesters have lined up and turned their backs on the Westboro Baptist pickets.

In 1999, inspired by the murder of Matthew Shepard the previous year, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moore Michael Moore] organized a protest against [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia homophobia] for his television show ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_Truth_%28TV_series%29 The Awful Truth]''. He toured states with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-sodomy_law anti-sodomy laws] in the "Sodomobile", a pink bus filled with gay men and women. At one point, they visited the Westboro Church compound and got out to meet Fred Phelps, at which time Moore introduced the Sodomobile to him.

Two days after the September 11 attacks in 2001, a 19-year old man named Jared Dailey stood on the street corner facing the church holding up a plywood sign that said "Not today, Fred". Within two days, 86 people joined him, waving American flags and anti-hate signs.

On December 12, 2008, the group picketed a production of ''The Laramie Project'' at the Boston Center for the Arts. Local activists held a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phelps-A-Thon Phelps-A-Thon] in response. Supporters pledged online to donate for every minute WBC protested. The event raised over $4,600 for an LGBT-rights project, Driving Equality.

In March 2010, a Richmond Virginia ad-hoc group formed to create a counter protest to an upcoming Westboro Baptist Church visit protesting against Jewish and LGBT organizations. Pennies In Protest took pledges for each minute of the WBC protest. The funds (approx. $14,000) were then donated to those same Jewish and LGBT organizations that WBC was protesting.

On December 11, 2010, the day of the funeral of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Edwards Elizabeth Edwards], a group called "Line of Love" planned to have about 200 protesters on the north side of West Edenton Street in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raleigh,_North_Carolina Raleigh, North Carolina] while 10 Westboro members picketed on the south side of the street, two blocks away from the funeral. Westboro members who disagreed with Edwards' tolerance for gays were "promoting awareness of the dangers of homosexuality", Line of Love gave its goal as "promoting proper respect for funerals".<ref>[https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1211/Why-is-the-Westboro-Baptist-Church-picketing-Elizabeth-Edwards-funeral/Who-are-these-people Why is the Westboro Baptist Church picketing Elizabeth Edwards' funeral?], ''The Christian Science Monitor''</ref>

On February 24, 2011, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivists] successfully took Westboro Baptist Church's websites down. The church claims this was the work of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29 Anonymous], but the group denied responsibility, instead identifying [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jester The Jester] as the culprit. During a live TV confrontation on ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_David_Pakman_Show The David Pakman Show]'' between Shirley Phelps-Roper and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topiary_%28hacktivist%29 Topiary] of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LulzSec LulzSec], Phelps-Roper stated that Anonymous could not "stop God's message". In response, Topiary and an accomplice seized control of one of Westboro's subdomains during the confrontation.

On September 16, 2011, when Westboro members picketed a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_Fighters Foo Fighters] concert in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Missouri Kansas City, Missouri], the band appeared on a truck float in front of the protesters. Dressed in homo-erotic outfits, they performed their country-parody song "Keep It Clean" – which contained many homosexual references and overtones – from their "Hot Buns" viral video; midway though the song, lead singer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Grohl Dave Grohl] made a speech calling for equality and tolerance. The band uploaded a video of the impromptu performance the next day on their YouTube channel.

After Westboro announced plans to picket funerals of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting on December 14, 2012, hacktivists from Anonymous executed a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) on the website of the Westboro Baptist Church, GodHatesFags.com, stating: “We will continuously DDOS until they are forced to put their inbred church tithes to use to pay for bandwidth.” Anonymous also simultaneously released a Westboro membership list, with the personal contact information for most Westboro members.