Anonymous Goes to Church on the WBC

We wrote before about the invisible group of hackers called Anonymous, who function like a modern day ghost of Robin Hood inside your machine, your computer, dispensing justice and making merry.

This time they have the Westboro Baptist Church as their target. The WBC is that group of "religious conservatives" who have shown up at the funerals of American soldiers to protest and make known their overarching view that the United States is on a godless path. While their views on homosexuality can be considered very loosely within Christian tradition, they have taken a particularly vulgar, hard line and hateful tone to those with whom they disagree. The church's major message is hate, and quite at odds from the approach you would imagine a Christian should take. They dislike everyone, and show none of the love that should be the operating mode for a Christian. If we should know them, Christians, by their love, then we do not at all know what to make of the WBC.

The question here is whether Anonymous is in the right by targeting such a group, or, as we suggested before, is this still another battle of the powerful versus the powerful, each using their own bully techniques to force some goal. When Anonymous comes down against, say, the U.S. government, we easily understand who the more democratic and open force is, despite the various mistakes our government might make. But we do not know Anonymous: there is no face.

In this battle with the Westboro Church, and the challenging of their free speech, we can hardly imagine a better group to have their rights immediately truncated, and their own bile heaped back in their yard. We understand the impulse to challenge such a  group, and secretly in our hearts applaud the action.

But, does Anonymous deserve that type of power? Are they responsible enough?  In any case the WBC responded to the anonymous threat by saying, *"Bring it," which should at least given them a hand in shenaniganizing their own operations.

*(That response was found on one of their websites in a PDF response. We won't link to the website because honestly, even linking to their terminology and hateful way of expressing themselves makes us feel darkened).