Westboro Baptist Church petition to deem the church as a "hate group" has become the most popular ever petition on the White House "We the People" digital petition platform initiative, garnering over 270,000 signatures.
The Westboro Baptist Church petition been followed by two more pushing to have the congregation's tax exemption rights revoked. The Westboro Baptist Church is known for protests against gay rights, even at military funerals.
The 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.
Westboro's Margie Phelps told the Daily Mail that God sent the 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, to kill people in Connecticut because the state legalized same-sex marriage.
"Connecticut was one of the first states to come out with same-sex marriage," Phelps said as she sat beside a blood-red-stained sign that read: 'God sent the shooter."
"Many more shooters, many more dead are coming," she added.
Westboro Baptist Church's plan to picket the Newtown funerals 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.
"This group has been recognized as a hate group by organizations, such as The Southern Poverty Law Center, and has repeatedly displayed the actions typical of hate groups," read a description for the petition.
"Their actions have been directed at many groups, including homosexuals, military, Jewish people and even other Christians. They pose a threat to the welfare and treatment of others and will not improve without some form of imposed regulation."
