Federal Judge Orders Liens On Westboro Baptist Church Building and Phelps Law Office

News outlets often report on the controversies surrounding the Westboro Baptist Church, which publicizes its extreme homophobia. Today, we learn how a Maryland Federal Judge ordered liens against the church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office

Many of us follow the stories about Westboro Baptist Church, evident in a search on Digital Journal for the word "Westboro." Westboro Baptist Church runs a website called God Hates Fags and routinely protests at funerals of fallen soldiers. I, myself have been covering this churches actions for a while now and have written articles about their protesting at a teenagers funeral and their God Hates Marines agenda. Cynthia T. [Picasso] has written about the group protesting five family members killed in a crash. Critical_Conformity wrote about one of the Westboro TV ads, called God Loves IED's. Pamela Jean (GotTheScoop) wrote about the group protesting at the Virginia Tech funeral services. momentsintime covered the group when they picketed Heath Ledgers' funeral and asked what kind of group would picket a funeral? Wanderlaugh showed us when Westboro started a new site called God Hates Australia and patxxoo asked "does a family not have the right to grieve?" I think that I can say with almost 100% certainty that all that have written about the Westboro Baptist Church and their antics, will be happy to hear that a Federal court judge just ordered a lien on their properties yesterday. This affects the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office. A lien is a legal hold on property that makes it collateral against debt to anyone. It can stop the owner from selling the property or transferring title to the church, in this case. After Albert Snyder, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, sued them for emotional distress and invasion of privacy and won that lawsuit, many cheered and Fred Phelps, owner of the group, declared he wouldn't pay.

If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral.

The actual judgment against Westboro between compensatory damages and punitive damages was $10.9 million, but the judge on Feb. 4, reduced the punitive damage to $2.1 million, for a total judgment of $5 million. Even if the Phelps' went into bankruptcy, they would still be responsible for the $2.1 in punitive damages under federal bankruptcy rules. The group has not let this stop them, which is evidenced by their most recent release, showing that they are thanking god for the tragic fire that killed people in Pennsylvania and are planning to protest at their funerals.