The protests of the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based Christian group, are as notorious as they are ubiquitous. For 20 years, vibrantly colored signs with black block letters telling of God's hatred have appeared at theater events, funerals, universities and synagogues all over the United States in picket-style protests numbering over 44,000.

In anticipation of the upcoming picket at Brandeis, Shirley Phelps-Roper, an attorney and one of the leading figures in the Church, answered a few questions for me by phone last Sunday afternoon.

Phelps-Roper said that Brandeis "has been lurking around in the back of [her] mind" for some time and that she and the other Church members selected it as a protest site due to its association with the Jewish community.

She elaborated on the content of the upcoming pickets, calling them "love fests" and explaining that they are intended to communicate to "our Jewish brothers and sisters that we ... are in the last minutes of the last hours," saying that there will be "mercy for a remnant."

According to Phelps-Roper, the earth is presently on the verge of apocalypse, and certain Jewish people will be "saved" before the remaining Jews, along with the majority of humanity, will be eternally condemned to hell. The "remnant" described by Phelps-Roper will, she says, become a "restored house of Jacob, ... a nation born in a day."

This language is typical of the Westboro Baptist Church. Its teachings are apocalyptic, extreme and in many cases, difficult to stomach. Phelps-Roper says that she prefers "great plainness of speech" as opposed to "politically correct" terms.

Judged on vocabulary alone, one could easily say that the church is, on some level, looking for a reaction from its audience. And already, numerous groups have come together on campus to plan potential responses or counterprotests, none of which will surprise the Westboro Baptist Church.

Yet I wonder if a counterprotest is the best course of action in response to the church, especially in some of the more extreme forms that have arisen for consideration online and in discussion.

Typically, protests are, in some sense, political. Yet Phelps-Roper denies that she or her group is political at all. When asked if the outcome of the pickets is hoped to affect voting, Phelps-Roper answered, "No."

Therefore, the act of counterprotesting in order to shift democratic outcomes is, in this case, inapplicable. The goals of the church are spiritual, noncorporeal and difficult to define. They are impossible to protest effectively.

More importantly, though, the group considers counterprotests to have only "stiffened [its] resolve." Phelps-Roper described to me an early protest, during which gay activists approached the church picketers "talking horrible and trying to make [the picket] so painful that we'll shut up and go away" as a "horrible miscalculation on their part."

Laws made to limit the church's proximity to funerals have also been largely ineffective, according to Phelps-Roper, who noted that "laws ... haven't done one thing to stop us." Evidently so.

I am also concerned by the content of the counterprotests presently in the planning stages. In the past, gay and lesbian groups have held "Kiss-a-thons" before the group, ostensibly to display their sexuality proudly and turn the picketers away.

Yet I wonder if it is appropriate to allow oneself to be objectified in such a way, to turn one's sexuality into something of a spectacle intended to disgust the Church members. The point at which we allow ourselves to be consumed with anger and respond with such behavior is the point at which we have had our integrity stolen by a picket, and we cannot allow that to happen.

Nonetheless, if counterprotests do occur, I would encourage protesters to keep in mind that despite the extreme, infuriating content of the Westboro Baptist Church's signs and words, they are, in fact, fellow human beings with rights and dignity.

Responding to them with respect and courtesy will speak more of our integrity as a community than any amount of showy counterprotest and will result on less liability on our part to boot.