According to the White House, they can’t add The Westboro Baptist Church to their list of hate groups because they have no such list. On that note, they stated that President Obama finds their actions questionable and reprehensible.
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In reason years, the Westboro Baptist Church has protested the Newton shooting victims’ funerals as well as military funerals stating that their deaths were vengeance from God for the country tolerating homosexuality and abortion among other things. The requests pouring in from citizens are close to 700,000 across five petitions about the group. The other request in regards to Westboro is to revoke its tax-exempt status.
The White House stated that it would be releasing a map to show where the petition signers originate from. The map details that a large concentration of the signers hail from Connecticut where the Newtown tragedy and funeral protests were located and Kansas where the group is located. While the White House doesn’t have particular list of hate groups—instead a terrorist organization list—several other groups government and non-government do have hate group lists which the Westboro Baptist Church is featured on—such as the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list.