God Hates Tucson: LIFE photographs inside Westboro Baptist Church

Ben Cosgrove of LIFE Magazine tells Boing Boing last week,

This morning LIFE published a gallery of exclusive, never-seen photographs by Anthony Karen (the same photographer who did our KKK gallery last year) taken at the Westboro Baptist compound in Topeka, Kansas, in June 2008, and other places where the church likes to hang out and picket grieving families, etc.
The gallery is a disturbing, thought-provoking, intimate look inside what might well be the most despised community in America right now, along with Anthony's insights into what makes these people tick.

Here is the full photo gallery at LIFE.com.
The church has been in the news this week for their characteristically offensive plans to protest at the funerals of shooting victims in Tucson. The government of Arizona took quick action to block this, by passing an expedited law that made protesting within 300 feet of a funeral or burial service illegal. NY Mag, CNN, ABC affiliate in AZ, Christian Science Monitor.

This person has some interesting theories on the church's founder.

Thanks to Xeni, from BoingBoing