A reader writes:
Honestly, much as I loathe the Christianist right, it's not really accurate to cite the Westboro Baptist Church as even their fringe. The WBC is more like the LaRouche cultists—so far off in a world of their own that categorizing them as right or left doesn't make sense.
In fact, their move off the map is something of a fascinating story—in the early aughts, they could have hitched their star to the rising Christianist movement. But instead they started protesting military funerals, a move seemingly calculated to alienate them from the white southern populists who seem like their natural allies.
And I've always thought it *was* specifically calculated to that end. One of the most interesting things about the BBC doc on the WBC is seeing how their organization thrives on alienation and humiliation—whenever someone attacks on of them at a protest, via shouts or thrown Slurpees, everyone in the group comes together in a way people only can when they feel mutually threatened. In that sense, they are like Glenn Beck—people who deliberately provoke outrage, because the outrage of their enemies strengthens group solidarity.
The Dish 