Lets start with the definition of what discrimination truly is! Dictionary.com defines it as “treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit”. So in my owns words I will define discrimination as looking or putting someone down for something that they do, or the way they are, me thinking this can go into social class race gender of sexual orientation and so much more.
Connecting to the Westboro Baptist Church I want to look into sexual orientation again and also look back into gender. The way that they picket and look down onto anyone who is not considered straight is definitely discrimination. The way they think that a women can not do what a man can do is discrimination. They look down on these people, in these examples gay lesbian transgender bisexual or even women. And in the case of women think that they are just not capable of what a man is capable of.
Looking into this I will look into “The Five Faces of Oppression” by Young, I think about the way that groups will be oppressed and how that causes others to be discriminated. Oppression is defined as “unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power” defined by www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.
The Westboro Baptist Church is definitely a group that does not deserve to have power. They get there power by putting others down. They were not voted into power they were not born into power, it is power that they take amongst themselves to have and by that means take it amoungst themselves to put others down. The then discriminate against the members of other sexual orientation groups by hunting them down and telling them how much god hates them and how they will go to hell. They go out of there way to make people miserable. They even put themselves at risk since at many of there protests they are hit by drivers that disagree with them. Even though they are a minority group they are considered oppressed in this situation.
Young, I.M. (2000). Five faces of oppression. In Adams et al. (Eds.) Readings for diversity and social justice (pp. 35-49). New York: Routledge
katrinablevins 
I agree with you that the Westboro Baptist Church is a small group of the vast population that express these intense views, thus they are a small minority group in their beliefs. But look at the privilege it’s members wield, looking through their pictures at the Westboro Baptist Church website, a majority of it’s members experience white privilege. The founder of the Church was a white man with a college education wielding experience at Westpoint ( a prominent military training base in America)- So are they the oppressed? Or are they members of privilege oppressing minorities (homosexuals, youth, etc) in America? Did they only gain power and attention because of their privilege?
“Discriminatory” is a perfect word for the Westboro Baptists. You cover all the ways they discriminate with examples and definitions. You could possibly weave the Young article in more to further define and compare discrimination and oppression the Westboro Church.