Hatewatch Tweets
Hatewatch is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
‘God Hates Fags’ Church Preparing Ad for Limbaugh Show
UPDATE: Late Thursday, Rachel Nelson, public relations director for Premiere Networks, said any ads from Westboro Baptist Church would be rejected. “Premiere Networks is not considering an offer of sponsorship from Westboro Baptist Church,” Nelson said in a message to Hatewatch sent from the company’s Sherman Oaks, Calif., headquarters.
Guess who’s knocking on Rush Limbaugh’s door as his advertisers flee like rats from a sinking ship? It’s the people behind the infamous GodHatesFags website — the Westboro Baptist Church, the most notorious gay-bashing group in America — and they’re ready to step in to keep the embattled Limbaugh on the air.
“As a matter of fact, I can confirm that,” Westboro spokesman Steve Drain told Hatewatch today when asked if the church was seeking to advertise on “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” “We’re preparing our first ad at this very moment, and we’ll have a 30-second radio spot ready to go by Friday.”
Drain said he has been in contact with ad executives, but added that the Westboro spots will have to be produced before they are accepted or rejected. The radio ads would be posted as audio links Friday on the church’s websites, the Westboro spokesman said.
Clear Channel Communications, which owns Premiere Radio Networks, the distributor of Limbaugh’s program, did not return telephone calls or an E-mail seeking comment today. The program airs coast to coast for three hours a day, has about 13 million listeners, and is highly lucrative for Clear Channel.
For most mainstream media organizations, allowing Westboro to advertise would be absolutely radioactive. The church is probably best known for picketing the funerals of soldiers, carrying signs like “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and describing their deaths as God’s payback for America’s tolerance of gay people. It is despised as much by those on the political right as those on the left.
But Limbaugh has been losing advertisers by the score since late last month, when he called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” in extended rants after Fluke testified on Capitol Hill about contraception coverage. Even as criticism of Limbaugh began to rapidly mount around the country, he went on for a third day, this time suggesting that if insurance was to pay for Fluke’s contraception, he believed she should be obliged to make public a tape of her having sex.
Even for Limbaugh, who has long railed against “feminazis” and called female members of the Obama Cabinet “sex-retaries,” the comments and the vitriol with which they were delivered were remarkable. They spurred denunciations from many quarters, as well as a quickly expanding advertiser boycott. Limbaugh eventually issued a half-hearted apology, accompanied by hot blasts at his critics.
The ThinkProgress blog reported Wednesday that it had obtained an internal memo from Premiere listing 96 national companies that have “specifically asked” their advertisements not be played during the Rush Limbaugh Show. Today, it said more than 140 companies had dropped the show.
For his part, Limbaugh claimed that the losses of these advertisers were like “losing a couple of French fries in the container when it’s delivered to you in the drive-thru. You don’t even notice it.”
Similarly, the industry news blog, radio-info.com, reported today that Premiere is circulating a list of 98 advertisers who want to avoid “environments likely to stir negative sentiments.” The list includes carmakers Ford, General Motors and Toyota; insurance companies Allstate, Geico, Prudential and State Farm; and restaurant chains like McDonald’s and Subway, the blog reported. The advertisers reportedly want to avoid content “deemed to be offensive or controversial, for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity.”
For its part, Westboro sees a natural affinity with Limbaugh, Drain said, but the first ad won’t mention those commonalities. “The ad’s message will be that America is doomed because Americans have cast aside the standards of God, and won’t quit their proud sinning,” the Westboro spokesman said.
Westboro hasn’t always had kind words to say about Limbaugh. On its website, the church calls Limbaugh “a world-class phony, blow-hard.” “He wouldn’t recognize Bible truth if it were a bottle of pills on his desk,” it adds.
Undeterred, Westboro also agrees with Limbaugh’s remarks about Fluke, Drain said, and will attempt to impart that message in the church’s second radio advertisement.
“That lady basically believes she wants the government to pay to kill her babies,’’ Drain said in comments that closely resembled those delivered earlier by Limbaugh. “That implies a certain level of promiscuity. She wants to fornicate her brains out, but she doesn’t want a child. Sounds like a slut to me, and God hates sluts.”
on March 15th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
When the Westboro Baptist Church comes to your defense, you are pretty much doomed.
on March 15th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Erika,
One can only hope that turns out to be the case…
on March 15th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
These hate mongers completely ignore the fact that Sandra Fluke was referring to the use of the ‘pill’ for a medical condition. Of course very convenient for their propaganda machine.
on March 15th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
A match made in Heaven.
on March 15th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Hopefully this will push AFRN over the edge to drop Rush.
on March 15th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Oh please run WBC ads on Limbaugh’s show, lots of times! Fox could do a reality show of Rush living at the WBC too, just to make the permanent association of the two hateful assholier than thou entities. Perfect match. With that accomplished we can shove them into obscurity.
on March 15th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
WBC: “We love Rush!”
Everybody else: “Wedon’t want to advertise on Rush’s program.”
WBC; “We want everybody to love Rush like we do!”
Everyone with half a brain: “Never listening to his crap again.”
WBC: “Let’s put ADS on Rush’s programs because we want everyone to love US too!”
The rest of the world: ……….crickets……………
Yay WBC for finally loving somebody to a total public career death!
on March 15th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
So what? That church only has about a dozen members. There are 320 million people in America. I could just as easily find some extreme Communist group that matches my worldview and write a story on MY blog.
on March 15th, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Maybe these ads from Westboro (Thank God for dead soldiers!) will finally stop the DOD from broadcasting this crap to our troops.
on March 15th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please.
on March 15th, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Based on past history, I just dont see how Rush Limbaugh’s show is doomed. Bigots will always find ways to keep it alive.
on March 15th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
This is, perhaps, even more unsettling to me that the initial Rush slut experience. The number of whack jobs in this country who already listen to him and believe what he says will only grow if WBC signs on as an advertiser. That I already consider Rush nothing short of an anti-Christ makes the WBC his disciples, spreading their message of hate and anger. Please….NO….
on March 15th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Say what you will about the WBC, nobody attention-whores better.
Is that even a verb? Well, it is now.
on March 15th, 2012 at 10:16 pm
Stupid liberals, little do you realize that Fred Phelps once ran for public office…. AS A DEMOCRAT!!!
Fact Rush has not lost as many advertisers as the left wing libtard media reports. Most advertisers that dropped were local sponsers that he received no money for in the first place and those sponsers didn’t leave those local stations they just asked to advertise at a different time.. so no one has lost any money, WBC could not afford Rush’s rates to begin with..
You people are just stupid but that’s not surprising since you voted for Obama.
on March 15th, 2012 at 10:20 pm
” I could just as easily find some extreme Communist group that matches my worldview”
Uh, what? It sound to me like Communist groups don’t match your worldview at all.
on March 15th, 2012 at 10:22 pm
They’re crazy, but they’re rich. I expect they’ll just be the first of Rush’s new advertisers. This country tends to like sexism in the media, in practice if not in theory. Really makes me feel like giving up. Oh well, on with the fight, even if we never win.
on March 15th, 2012 at 11:21 pm
What has our country come too!! I see more late-night and SNL jokes and political humor for the rest of the year which in turn will educate more of our country if not our world on our “seperation of church and state” and state of mind! Just when I thought it couldnt get any more discusting.
on March 15th, 2012 at 11:23 pm
I absolutely, unequivocally and wholly support the Westboro Baptist Church advertising abundantly on the Rush Limbaugh (head of the Republican Party) show. By advertising on the “voice of the GOP radio program,” the Westboro Baptist Church would facilitate populating the United States Senate with 100 Democrats, the House of Representatives with 435 Democrats and of course, the Democrats would retain the White House. Wonderful news – just splendid.
on March 15th, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Lord help our troops! They arent going to like this one bit.
on March 16th, 2012 at 1:01 am
“Sin” is an obsolete term that is no longer relevant.
A more relevant term is “Crime”
But considering homosexuality as a crime? That’s called “absurdity”!
on March 16th, 2012 at 3:24 am
A match made in the (Very Hot) Opposite-of-Heaven!
on March 16th, 2012 at 7:36 am
Well, as the late Father George Gladky termed such things, at least in the place with no zip code.
on March 16th, 2012 at 8:09 am
Gregory:
This is a match made from hell.
on March 16th, 2012 at 9:47 am
“One can only hope that turns out to be the case.”
Really? Why are you hoping? The self-destruct mode has already started to kick in. You got 120 major advertisers jumping ship. Everyone knows that WBC is toxic. Even to those who claimed “13 million listeners”.
on March 16th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Fred Phelps is a registered Democrat.
on March 16th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
This proves the SPLC does not believe in free speech. Liberals claim to believe in ethical relativism; the notion that all beliefs and ethics are relative, equally valid, cannot be proven. They do not believe in absolute standards of morality. This is a lie. Leftists do have their own standards and work to silence or destroy other value systems. They don’t believe in free speech. They try to prevent speech from those they disagree with.
on March 16th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
If WBC is such a small group, as others have suggested, then where do they get the money to run ads on Rush Limbaugh’s show. Has he dropped the rates that much since advertisers have dumped him?
on March 16th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Vis-à-vis Concerned Citizen’s comment, I still contend that Phelps and Rush are a match made in Heaven. It is a Godsend, or would be if I believed in God.
on March 16th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
On the contrary, Jason, we are encouraging Phelps to exercise his free speech as a proud sponsor of Rush Limbaugh.
on March 16th, 2012 at 5:47 pm
SPLC believes in free speech…. Yeah right. That’s why you encourage your readers to take any action they can against the people you categorize as haters.
Like the ACLU, SPLC takes the view that only liberals can have free speech.
on March 16th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Isn’t it special when two degenerates of the same ilk finally find each other and fall in love?
on March 16th, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Jason, every time I read one of your posts, I am struck by the fact that you seem to be completely ignorant of what liberalism is all about and the pride you take in being voluntarily ignorant. This site is moderated. If we liberals were so interested in preventing free speech and silencing the obviously superior right, then I might suggest that you posts would never appear here. A fact that you seem to have missed.
But then, having the freedom to speak one’s mind is not necessarily coordinate with one having the ability to actually think, is it?
on March 16th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
This is an interesting issue in terms of free speech. As revolting as I, personally, find The Westboro Baptist Church, I fully support the US supreme court decision to rule in their favor concerning the right to free speech.
In the 80s it was Larry Flint who was testing the boundaries of free speech. If Larry Flint had free speech in the 80s — so did you and I. Times have changed and it is now the Phelps gang who are testing the outer limits — and the ones who have taken the issue to new levels.
If you find Hustler magazine offensive, then don’t buy one. Problem solved. What about the freedom to picket high-profile events including funerals publicly with offensive messages? In these cases it’s not as easy as simply not purchasing material that you don’t like. In this day and age — if Fred Phelps has free speech, so do you and I.
So, Jason, up there ^ — I think it’s clear that I do not want to silence anyone. I can state just how stupid Limbaugh and Phelps are, but stating this obvious does not take away their right to spout their idiotic hate speech.
Remember the Sex Pistols of the late 70s? Those guys would have traded limbs to be half as offensive as the WBC.
on March 16th, 2012 at 11:26 pm
Limbaugh isn’t exactly in a position to be fussy.
on March 17th, 2012 at 12:06 am
If Rush was a true Conservative, he would stay away from bedroom issues and stick to economics. Very simply, he profits from inflammatory speech. I would like to mention the time, between marriages, he was caught by US Customs with Viagra in an unlabelled container after returning from Costa Rica on his private jet.
on March 17th, 2012 at 12:18 am
“Fred Phelps is a registered Democrat.”
I love this example of conservative idiocy. So and so was/is a Democrat!! He must be a liberal. The concept of looking at a person’s actual values and behavior and comparing them to the usual values and behavior of each party never happens. Just look at the D or R behind their name.
on March 17th, 2012 at 11:12 am
I’m surprised that church wasn’t already advertizing on his show.
on March 17th, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Jason! You’re back!
Tell us again how the Holocaust was invented in 1991 to cover for the fall of the Soviet Union, and please provide the citations and proofs for this theory!
Then tell us again how Norman Rockwell was a closet Nazi!
And how you are superior to W.E.B. Dubois because of the melanin content in your skin!
The tumbrels await!
on March 19th, 2012 at 2:48 am
All knowing said,
on March 15th, 2012 at 10:16 pm
“Stupid liberals, little do you realize that Fred Phelps once ran for public office…. AS A DEMOCRAT!!!”
If you are indeed “All knowing”, why is it that you don’t know that anyone can go in and register as a member of a political party whether they are of that party or not? They can also file to run for office as a member of that party, as Randall Terry did in Oklahoma. Phelps did not win as a Democrat and neither did Terry. Had either of them won- then you could say “stupid liberals” and it would be deserved because it would have shown that people did not know who they were voting for. But since neither of them made it any distance as Democrats, then I would have to say they were the stupid ones and perhaps you fit under that umbrella if you think that their running proves anything other than that?
on March 19th, 2012 at 8:57 am
There have been any number of false-flag candidates. In my own state, I voted for the Republican candidate for Secretary of Ag because: (a) the “Democrat” had neither farmed nor had any connection with food prodection or agricultural land use; (b) he was making damned strange noises for a “Democrat”. He lost the election, and a couple of months later was unmasked as a Teahadi.
on March 19th, 2012 at 9:28 am
Why on earth isnt Limbaugh and the EIB network on the list of hate groups? I’m completely sure he qualifies. That man spouts hate speech 5 days a week.
on March 19th, 2012 at 9:36 am
“SPLC believes in free speech…. Yeah right. That’s why you encourage your readers to take any action they can against the people you categorize as haters.”
Please show where they have stated this.
“Like the ACLU, SPLC takes the view that only liberals can have free speech.”"
You mean the same ACLU who defended the rights of Neo-Nazis to march through Skokie, IL?
on March 19th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
“Like the ACLU, SPLC takes the view that only liberals can have free speech.”
Please note that the ACLU filed a brief defending Rush Limbaugh against invasion of privacy in Florida in 2004 when state officials illegally obtained his medical records. This was even reported on Fox News. As I am sure you are aware, Rush was not a liberal at that time.
He has a right to free speech as well, however, slander is not protected by the first amendment.
on March 22nd, 2012 at 4:59 pm
Westboro Baptist is not a Christian group. It has been suggested that they are a propaganda tool of the government.
I realize it may soon be illegal to say this, but God does not love those who willingly choose to flaunt their sin in rebellion against their Creator. These people pervert the Scriptures by claiming it says God approves of them just the way they choose to behave.
on March 22nd, 2012 at 5:00 pm
No slander as he did to another should be acceptable in this Global life that the Americas seek to proclaim.
Religion gives no preference as to beating down another, or calling names, or any ugliness that comes from the hate of men!
on March 22nd, 2012 at 7:28 pm
Just perfect. A match made in hell.
on March 22nd, 2012 at 9:11 pm
I’m certainly delighted to learn that all one needs to consider when assessing his political persuasion and his attitudes regarding equal rights is his party affiliation. It makes it so simple to disregard all that extraneous and meaningless fluff like his actions and his words. Wow, I’m really dumbfounded to realize that I’d missed this obvious clue. The problem with this approach is that it is both intellectually dishonest as well as intellectually lazy.
on March 22nd, 2012 at 11:46 pm
sounds like limp-bawl is going from the frying pan to the fire
on March 23rd, 2012 at 6:17 am
This is a smear piece, the God hates Fags group doesn’t have funds to advertise on national radio shows. Rush doesn’t support G H F groups point of view. Your organization is hard up for news spreading this story. Here’s a tip crazy Islamic man shoots French military members, and clips 4 Jews. Look into it.
on March 23rd, 2012 at 8:22 am
Hey Matt,
The SPLC doesn’t cover other countries. Look into it.
Twit.
on March 23rd, 2012 at 11:38 am
Westboro doesn’t have the kind of money it would take to buy advertizing time on Limbaugh’s creep show. Judging by their past record, their ads would probably violate every FCC regulation there is regarding content. The airwaves are not the streets. Fred doesn’t have a constitutional right to spew hate on the airwaves.
on March 23rd, 2012 at 11:44 am
“Isn’t it special when two degenerates of the same ilk finally find each other and fall in love?”
Is it Ilk Season again already? Get your guns!! 8^)
on March 23rd, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Wow, Limbaugh must really be desperate to replace his lost advertisers…
on March 24th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Snorlax,
I bagged me a twelve-pointer! Har har har xD
on March 24th, 2012 at 9:01 pm
The saying goes “Great minds think alike”, but in this case it should be “Hateful minds think alike.”
on March 24th, 2012 at 9:11 pm
There are, it is said, two places with no zip code, and they both begin with H. One has a long hot summer with no ice cream, and the other has a long performance of dinner music, with no dinner. Surely this match was made in one of them, and may the happy couple enjoy their honeymoon forever in whichever place it is. In either event, we shall be shut of them.
on March 25th, 2012 at 9:53 am
they deserve each other. this match was made in hell.
on March 25th, 2012 at 8:49 pm
Snorlax for the win. Actually did laugh out loud over that one.
on June 3rd, 2012 at 1:57 am
Rush doesnt hate gays. He spent many years at K street with the men downtown and they were all gay. I dont know it Rush claims to be gay. But people dont know of any one who isnt gay on K street. Isnt he a frient of Larry Broeidbeck?.