Westboro Hate Group Targets Robin Williams' Memorial, Silicon Valley Tech Companies
CUPERTINO (CBS SF) - The organization known for holding hate-filled anti-LGBT protests outside of events all over the country, including the funerals of AIDS victims and U.S. soldiers, spent Tuesday traveling to some of the Bay Area's biggest tech headquarters to share their message of damnation, all while incessantly and ironically using one of their targets -- Twitter -- to condemn the life of Robin Williams, and threaten to protest at the late comedian's memorial.
The Westboro Baptist Church, a small Kansas self-described "congregation" which blames the world's ills on tolerance for gay people, tweeted out photos of tiny gatherings outside Facebook in Menlo Park, in front of Apple's Cupertino headquarters and the Google Campus in Mountain View.
In all, the group had planned to protest at 9 major Bay Area tech firms in "God Hates The Media" rallies. KPIX 5 attempted to catch up with the group at both Facebook and Google, but was unable to locate the small gathering of demonstrators.
[tweet https://twitter.com/WBCSays/status/499288803455275008 width='340']
In fact, the number of participants involved in the picketing appears to pale in comparison to the number of hate-filled tweets being sent by the group over the last 24 hours. Some of those messages were directed at tech firms, but far more were celebrating the death of Robin Williams in his Tiburon home Monday.
Among the tweets were dozens of memes including "Robin is in hell," and describing him as an "enabler" of the LGBT. The group even tried to start the hashtag #PicketFuneral within hours of his death.
[tweet https://twitter.com/WBCSays/status/499152797469003776 width='340']
A protest of Williams' memorial is not on the hate group's official schedule, however formal plans had yet to be announced Tuesday.
In the past, organizers have announced plans for a protest just to gain media attention and then never actually showed up.