Fox and a variety of print media are reporting that the people that brought you "God Hates Fags" is planning to protest the funerals of the Amish girls killed this past week by a crazed gunman.

The Westboro group says the Amish school girls were "killed by a madman in punishment for Gov. Ed Rendell's blasphemous sins against Westboro Baptist Church.

"Gov. Ed Rendell -- speaking and acting in his official capacity to bind the State of Pennsylvania -- slandered and mocked and ridiculed and condemned Westboro Baptist Church on national Fox TV," the group says on its website.

"Rendell also revealed a conspiracy to employ the State's police powers to destroy WBC in order to silence WBC's Gospel message. Co-conspirators identified by Rendell included state officials, citizens, lawyers, legislators and media," the website says.

Westboro Baptist Church said it is "continuing to pray for even worse punishment upon Pennsylvania."

The WBC are Baptist by confession, not by association with any recognized Baptist convention

What I couldn't discover is how this group is financed. The group consists of perhaps 100 members, the vast majority of which are relatives of Fred Phelps. There are rumors that Phelps, a disbarred lawyer and his daughter, who is an attorney, use the courts to extract financial settlements that keep the group afloat and travelling around the country protesting funerals.

The group has an uncanny knack for hitting the exposed nerve, which undoubtedly generates the most opportunities for civil lawsuits (the group has been assaulted many times...). If we want the WBC to "go away", the best way would be to simply ignore them--fat chance of that.