• DOI:10.1080/01639625.2014.906282
Corpus ID: 144740362

Desecration, Moral Boundaries, and the Movement of Law: The Case of Westboro Baptist Church

@article{Baker2015DesecrationMB,
  title={Desecration, Moral Boundaries, and the Movement of Law: The Case of Westboro Baptist Church},
  author={Joseph O. Baker and C. Bader and Kittye K. Hirsch},
  journal={Deviant Behavior},
  year={2015},
  volume={36},
  pages={42 - 67}
}

Joseph O. Baker, C. Bader, Kittye K. Hirsch

Published 2015

Sociology

Deviant Behavior

Using participant observation, in-depth interviews, and legislative histories, we examine Westboro Baptist Church, a religious group infamous for homophobic rhetoric and funeral protests. Employing cultural and interactionist perspectives that focus on the semiotics of death, the sacred, and desecration, we outline how Westboro’s activities purposively violate deeply held signifiers of moral order through language, while simultaneously respecting extant laws of behavior. This strategy, in… CONTINUE READING

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