The Westboro Baptist Church’s Message Will Change Lives
The Westboro Baptist Church has been the epitome of hatred for the last few years. Spreading nothing but hate and anti-homosexual lifestyles through out the United States, they have become the most hated family in America. The Church wants you to oppose the homosexual movement prominent in today’s society. However, their message only makes you want to oppose the church. The Westboro Baptist Church not only causes people to oppose the church, but oppose anti gay, lesbian, and bisexual activity. The Westboro Baptist Church has made their message clear to the world about how they feel about lesbian, gay and bisexual or LGB individuals. However, most disagree strongly with their stance. The reason for this may not be because LGB people however, but the church itself. If you’ve ever seen a Westboro Baptist Church sign in your lifetime, you maybe felt disgusted by the sign “Fags die god laughs” or maybe upset at the sign saying “Thank god for AIDS” but either way, it strikes an emotion. This emotion that you feel is enough to make someone question their own choices in life.
Someone who is on the fence about gay rights sees the hate that these people spread and compare their beliefs to theirs. Even if only for a second, they wouldn’t dare relate themselves to these awful people. This can also be seen in other instances of society. One example can be see in our very own government. The Republicans and Democrats have had an ongoing feud between themselves for quite some time now. Even if the republican side of government were to promote an idea that would help the government very strongly, the democrat side instantly rejects it. Not because of the idea, just because a republican promoted it. This compares to the Westboro Baptist Church because when they promote their ideologies, people instantly reject them due to the shear fact that it’s coming from a person who spreads hate and despair throughout America. As disgusting as a republican might see a democrat, however, is not nearly on the same level as the church.
A study was performed on a group of college students to test the effect of endorsement on products. The test was to discover whether if the endorser was shown to be a bad person that had done something terrible, how exactly it would affect the products marketing. Some groups were handed both a pamphlet on the product and also a negative news story on the endorser. The other groups were just handed the pamphlet. The groups that were handed the news story and the pamphlet formed less favorable opinions about the product than the other group. When people see the Westboro Baptist Church and the misery that their hate-speech creates, of course they are going to reject their beliefs. This is shown by the test that the researchers conducted.
From this information, we can only draw one possible conclusion. Whatever the Westboro Baptist Church is trying to get across to us, is having the opposite effect. The LGB movement is extremely prominent in modern society and the Westboro Baptist Church is partly responsible. More and more states are pushing for gay marriage and are rallying nationwide to make a stand against people like this group. Everywhere the Church goes there are more and more people that follow, just to stop the group and prevent them from continuing to spread hate. The more the Church pushes against this movement, the more backlash they will receive from the public and their goal will continue becoming farther and farther away until it is finally unreachable.
Works cited:
Bikers Block Westboro Baptist Church From Protesting Newtown Funerals
White, Darin W., Lucretia Goddard, and Nick Wilbur. “The Effects of Negative Information Transference in the Celebrity Endorsement Relationship.” Emerald Insight. N.p., 1973. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emeraldinsight.com%2Fjournals.htm%3Farticleid%3D1776095>.
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Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
How Wrong Is Their Religion?
I think the title will get the readers using you’re essay as an example to see how negative Westboro Baptist Church is.
Grade recorded. Always improvable with revisions.
Revised:
Added an additional conclusion, felt that where I left off last was a bit abrupt so I edited it.
Fixed work cited, apparently my works cited was wrong and nobody had said anything, Vinny pointed it out for me and I got it straight.
Any feedback would be great!
Feedback provided. —DSH
Ryan, I’m going to try to confine myself to content and rhetoric recommendations. We are too late in the semester for grammar lessons beyond the few I will review on Thursday. Please be alert to those.
P1. You begin with a claim so completely unexpected it requires clarification. You cannot assume your reader is familiar with your overall thesis or that she has read your other essays, so it’s very confusing to hear that the Church opposes itself.
You also can’t assume everyone is familiar with the church. Three sentences in, you’ve only told me that the church has taken a clear stance, but not what it is. (Your first sentence tries to, but it also says the church creates opposition to itself. We don’t get it.)
Skip the “many different feelings.” Move directly to those feelings.
Most readers will strenuously resist your claim that they question their own life choices when they see a WBC sign. That’s the biggest reason we don’t say “YOU” in essays. It sounds like an accusation. It will cost you readers. It’s not persuasive to tell people what they believe or how they feel.
—Eliminate Second Person language, starting with the title! (Violated my own restrictions already.)
—You are not comfortable with negative constructions. Stick with positives. They do this and they do that NOT not only do they not do this but they also positive statement. Much too confusing. (Did it again.)
P2. While I appreciate your example, the aversion of Democrats to Republican ideas does not induce nausea the way reading GOD HATES FAGS does, Ryan. Be sure you phrase your analogy in a way to acknowledge the difference. I grant you the “opposition by affiliation” effect is in play.
P3. Endorsement doesn’t affect products at all.
Serious syntax trouble: Whether / if / or if / how exactly it would affect . . . .
You don’t explain the test well. First you say groups got both pamphlets and news. Then you suggest not everybody got news.
You haven’t identified a “terrible thing . . . to innocent families” in this essay, Ryan.
Read those last two sentences again. You actually say: “reject their beliefs” AND “reject the church’s beliefs.”
P4. Not exactly. We can draw another perfectly reasonable conclusion. The GOD HATES FAGS message communicates perfectly and positively to its true constituency.
Your actual thesis, I thought, was that the tactics (not the messages) create opposition to the message. You don’t say it clearly anywhere here, but if you don’t, you’re left with: “The message of the Church turns people off, which turns them off to the Church, which turns them off to the message.” Am I missing something?
Your evidence enter the essay at the right time, but it would help to stud it with a single quotation from a spokesperson from the LGBT community (or one of them) along the lines of, “We have to thank the Westboro Baptist Church for galvanizing support for our cause. Reasonable people are moved to take a stand against vicious hate messages.” Just one would be nice.
LOVE the evidence that groups travel to oppose the Church and present an opposite message. Where’s your citation for a good source on this essential evidence? It’s just your word here.
You’re trying to show cause and effect. If the WBC brings out biker clubs in favor of LGBT rights, “show me the money.”
Grade recorded.
Improvable on the move into the Portfolio.
Revised
noted