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    "Pray Not for this People for Their Good": Westboro Baptist Church, the Religious Right, and American Nationalism

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    Issue Date
    2010-12-17
    Author
    Barrett-Fox, Rebecca
    Publisher
    University of Kansas
    Format
    458 pages
    Type
    Dissertation
    Degree Level
    Ph.D.
    Discipline
    American Studies
    Rights
    This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
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    Abstract
    Westboro Baptist Church, a small Topeka, Kansas-based church pastored by Fred Phelps, came to national attention for members' pickets of the funerals of gay people but has prompted continued public outrage because of pickets at the funerals of deceased military servicemen and women and at scenes of national tragedy, where they preach a message that God is destroying America because of the nation's sexual sins. Drawing from extensive field research at Westboro Baptist Church services and pickets, this dissertation provides an ethnography and history of the church. Rhetorical and visual analyses of church-produced artifacts, including sermons, signs, websites, and reports, provide data for an explanation of church theology and a timeline of anti-gay activism. The dissertation places the theology and activism of Westboro Baptist Church in the context of American religious history and suggests that Westboro Baptist Church's message of national doom that reflects a strand of thought that has always been present in American religion. Using radical flank theory, the dissertation examines Westboro Baptist Church in the context of the contemporary Religious Right, noting how the offensive message and in-your-face tactics of Westboro Baptist Church serve as a foil to the "compassion" of the Religious Right, centering and softening the Religious Right's anti-gay theology, which similarly argues that sexual sins damn a nation, and its anti-gay political activism. The dissertation concludes by examining legal aspects of Westboro Baptist Church funeral pickets and argues that public outrage in response to pickets at the funerals of fallen servicemen and women reveals a willingness to trade civil liberties for civility, an impulse to celebrate all fallen servicemen and women as straight and Christian, and a valuing of the lives of presumably straight servicemen and women as more deserving of dignity than the lives of gay men and women, trends that are more threatening to democracy, the dissertation, argues, than are the uncivil pickets of Westboro Baptists.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1808/7738
    Collections
    • Dissertations [4321]
    • American Studies Dissertations and Theses [52]

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    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
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    Contact KU ScholarWorks
    785-864-8983
    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    Image Credits
     

     

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