There’s a perverse strain in American society that periodically gives rise to the likes of Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. This fringe fundamentalist preacher and his congregation – about 60 members, mostly his kin – have been staging demonstrations around the country at funerals of U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq, exultantly hailing their deaths as America’s divine punishment for tolerating homosexuality.

Such demonstrations were threatened, but never carried out, for the Maine funerals of Sgt. Corey Dan in March 2006 and Sgt. Richard Parker of Phillips this past June.

“You can’t preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God,” said Phelps, echoing the sentiments of religious fanatics through the ages, who have anointed themselves exclusive guardians of divine truth while consigning all non-believers to the status of vermin.

Banners carried by Westboro Church demonstrators spew venom: “God Hates Fags.” “God Is Your Enemy.” “Not Blessed Just Cursed.” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” While hardly alone among Christian fundamentalists in condemning homosexuality as sinful, Phelps is unique in his ability to shock and offend not only gays but grieving families of fallen soldiers and the general public.

Though the U.S. is generally a land of tolerance, religiously motivated bigots tend to pop up like dandelions during periods of social or economic stress. They often trumpet the most bloody-minded scriptural passages, while ignoring others that call for love, humility, compassion, forgiveness and charity.

To cite just a few examples: militant abolitionist and Congregationalist minister John Brown, who massacred five pro-slavery southern settlers in Kansas Territory in 1856; commentator and Catholic priest Fr. Charles E. Coughlin, who broadcast weekly anti-Semitic radio programs during the Great Depression, and pro-life radicals who have targeted abortion clinics with arson, bombings and shootings over the past 30 years.

Mix this old-time religious extremism with a few contemporary ingredients – namely, the First Amendment right of people like Phelps to freely verbalize their hateful ideas; sensationalist media coverage, which encourages outrageous posturing by those clamoring for public attention; and a civil justice system, which allows jurors to express community revulsion by awarding big-dollar verdicts – and you end up with a phenomenon that’s almost as American as, well, apple pie.

While a number of states, including Maine, have passed legislation restricting demonstrations at funerals and providing criminal penalties for violations, the most effective way to keep such outlandish behavior in check is probably through the deterrent effect of civil juries.

That may be just what happened last month, when a Maryland jury awarded the grieving father of a soldier killed in Iraq an $11 million verdict against the Westboro Church and three of its leaders after members demonstrated at his son’s funeral.

Civil juries have been known to award multi-million or even multi-billion dollar verdicts against defendants whose conduct they found repugnant, and they’ve got plenty of leeway to do so under legal principles allowing compensatory damages for the infliction of emotional distress, and punitive damages to both punish and discourage repetition of offending behavior. There’s indeed some truth to the oft-repeated platitude of victorious plaintiff’s attorneys that jurors intended to send a “message” to others inclined towards similar conduct.

In 1988, for instance, a federal jury awarded almost $1 million in damages against several Ku Klux Klan organizations and 11 followers, who had pelted the plaintiffs with rocks and bottles during a 1987 civil rights march in Georgia. The financial pressure of the judgment literally drove the Klan groups out of business. As part of a final settlement in 1994, they had to agree to disband and to destroy their membership and subscription lists. In a final irony, their office equipment was turned over to the NAACP.

The lead plaintiff said the outcome of the case wouldn’t change the Klansmen’s “hearts and what is in their mind,” but would “hit them where it hurts most, in the pocketbook.”

The Phelps judgment, which far exceeded the defendants’ collective financial resources, does not yet seem to have dampened the Westboro Church’s enthusiasm for demonstrating at soldiers’ funerals. In fact, Shirley Phelps-Roper, Fred Phelps’ daughter, was so delighted with the publicity generated by the verdict that she gushed, “Our message has exploded all over the world.”

If publicity is all the Church cares about, then its over-the-top way of dramatizing its message has so far succeeded in attracting widespread attention. Its methods, though extreme, are an evolutionary product of both the “protest” movements of the 1960s and 1970s, which spawned endless marches, sit-ins and demonstrations designed to draw television news cameras and public attention to their causes, and the gradual coarsening of societal standards, which has undermined traditional notions of “appropriate” public etiquette.

The most extreme antics of 1960s protestors, such as the “guerilla theater” tactics of Yippie demonstrators in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention, seem relatively tame today by comparison with the routine carryings on of many celebrities, sports stars and reality television show participants, who don’t even have a political agenda. The tabloid media’s strenuous efforts to satisfy their viewing and reading audiences’ appetite for the outrageous has simply raised the bar for those, like the Westboro Church, who are competing for attention.

It must not have occurred to Shirley Phelps-Roper, however, that Church members can’t travel, even to well-publicized demonstrations, without money. The Maryland verdict, if collected, probably won’t leave them enough for bus fare of out Topeka.

Elliott L. Epstein, a Lewiston attorney, is founder and board president of Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community College. He can be reached at [email protected].