WASHINGTON, D.C. — Users of the White House’s “We the People” digital petition platform have flooded the site in support of an effort to officially designate the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group.

The most popular petition was submitted on Dec. 14, the same day as the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., an incident that Westboro responded to by announcing its intent to picket the funerals of the 26 victims, including 20 young children. This plan made them a prime target of hacktivist group Anonymous and eventually drew a well-attended counter-protest to block the church’s followers from disrupting the services.

The individual push has since received the support of nearly 250,000 signees, making it the most popular single petition ever created through the White House initiative. It recently cruised past a call for federal action on gun control, which along with a number of other petitions on the issue of gun rights, drew a response from President Barack Obama last week.

But the quarter-million signature effort to recognize Westboro as a hate group is also getting a boost from two other petitions calling for the congregation’s tax-exempt status to be revoked. Both of those have also crossed the 25,000 signature threshold needed to prompt a response from the administration.

WBC pickets during a military funeral. At right: WBC pickets in Dearborn, MI outside of the Islamic Center of America.

Official action has been taken against Westboro’s most frequently utlized weapon — its highly inflammatory, anti-gay displays at military funerals — though not directly against the church itself. In August, Obama signed the Honoring America’s Veterans Act, which declared that protests must be held at least 300 feet from military funerals and were prohibited two hours before or after a service.

Westboro Baptist Church members came to Dearborn to protest against Islam twice last November.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) hate group, who call Islam a “false religion,” protested in Dearborn near the Islamic Center of America early last November twice in one month.

WBC protestors held up signs that read: “Imams rape children,” “Muhammad is a pedophile,” “God hates Islam” and “Muhammad = lying. False prophet.”

WBC has conducted 44,452 pickets in 796 cities and originally planned to burn the Qur’an on the ninth anniversary of the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks on America.

The church has nationally been condemned as a hate group and is known for its stance against homosexuality, destroying the American flag and picketing at the funerals of soldiers. In accordance to WBC beliefs, U.S. causalities in Afghanistan and Iraq are God’s punishment for homosexuality and abortion, which the WBC says are immoral. The church also opposes Lutherans, Catholics and other religious denominations.

After their protest in Dearborn, the three WBC activists went to Wayne State University where they spread hate messages about the Jewish community.

The WBC is based out of Topeka, Kansas. Its members believe only certain people are pre-ordained to reach Heaven. The church is led by Pastor Fred Phelps, whose hate messages have him banned from entering the United Kingdom.  

— Huffington Post and TAAN