You've found an article which simultaneously claims that the church spends $300k/year on travel, and that it made $170k from legal victories in the past 20 years. It would seem that to break even, it would need to be winning victories at a rate of 35 times what the article found evidence for.

In addition to Avery's comments, your cited article doesn't support your claim that the WBC gets most of its funding from lawsuits. The article itself states So how do they afford that? Most of it comes from within the organization, which consists of about 70 followers-most of whom are offspring of or related to founder Fred Phelps.

Just noting a few things: most importantly being awarded attorney fees is not necessarily a form of any income, after all, that's not going to pay much better than just being an attorney in the first place (do remember that fighting legal battles costs a lot of time). Whether you decide to donate the earned money to a church is up to the individual, so if you want to consider it actual income it needs to be more than just 'legal fees'. (cont.)

Secondly the BI quote mentions a lawsuit in 1995 which I can not find any documentation of, it sounds like the Snyder v Phelps case, but that one only had $16,510 in legal fees and was a decade later.

And lastly a more personal note: Do not take this criticism as censorship. The thing to realize is that just because WBC is one of the better known hate groups that doesn't make every negative statement automatically true.

If they won $43,000 in legal fees, that means they spent $43,000 in legal fees to achieve that victory. So zero profit.

Don't yo know - [the vast majority of legal settlements are confidential.] (google.com/…) $170,000 from just a few of the ones that weren't are clearly what led to the journalists conclusion that "The reviled Westboro Baptist Church makes a ton of money by suing communities that don't let them protest" As I said - "conclusive proof ... No." Given that I said that, it's a smear to claim that I'm taking every negative statement as automatically true, @DavidMulder.

Sklivvz has censored "Also: Eleven of Phelps' thirteen children are lawyers. " from my reply. That's a cold, hard fact. Nothing impolite about that fact. Whatsoever. I take that as what it is, @DavidMulder. Censorship. And removal of "The current answers show terrible ig***ance" because it's not polite enough? And Sklivvz put words in my mouth - "The conclusions are pretty obvious from this" - referring to evidence very different from that to which it originally refers. Not cool.

Other cold, hard facts were censored, as the edit history shows. As were my initial comments in this thread. They've disappeared without a trace.

Reasoning and court order of 1979 permanently taking away permission for Fred Phelps Sr to practice law in Kansas It finds that: Phelps disregarded his oath of office. Phelps pursued lawsuits and appeals because of a personal vendetta. Phelps was previously suspended from practicing law for a period of two years for unprofessional conduct in 1969.

Nathan Phelps will later say that his father routinely files frivolous lawsuits in the hope that his targets will settle out of court rather than face the expenditures of a bench trial.Source

@MatthewElvey: The question is asking if most of the WBC's funding comes from lawsuits. Your answer seems more focused on showing that they get some money from lawsuits. If you can find some sort of total value estimate it would go a long way toward improving your answer.

Yes, that is the question. And the answer "There is absolutely no reason to believe there is any amount of truth to this." is proven false. Yet my (censored by Sklivvz) answer is rated far lower. I have explained why we can't prove with public information that they get most of the money from lawsuits. We don't have subpoena powers - surely the only way likely to get an informed total value estimate. And even if we did, the results would be under seal. My (censored) answer is focused on showing that there is some evidence that suggests they get most money from lawsuits.

@DJClayworth not when the $43,000 in legal fees go to your own children who are in your church. Again: Sklivvz has totally unjustifiably censored "Also: Eleven of Phelps' thirteen children are lawyers." from my answer.

@ MrHen, @ March-Ho: @Oddthinking edited the question to add "most" to the title, replacing "significant" even though "significant" appears on a par in the body of the question. (skeptics.stackexchange.com/posts/22970/revisions) How was it fair to move the goalposts on both ends, Oddthinking?

Thanks for the needless accusations. If you look at the comments on that edit, it is clear I am returning the goalposts to where they belong. The claimant didn't make a wishy-washy statement about "significant" levels. The claimant made an measurable claim: that "most" of their money comes from lawsuits. We should address the claim, not strawmen.

The name of the claimantis? The source showing that said claimant made the claim is? Did I say anything untrue? Do you deny that you "edited the question to add "most" to the title, replacing "significant" ? I asked a QUESTION. What, are "the needless accusations" you accuse me of making against you? You say yourself you moved the goalposts. I responded to the questions from @ MrHen, @ March-Ho; I should, in general, be responding to questions directed at me. No?

Hmm... the title edit was made in August 2014 (8 years ago!), about 2 years before this answer was written (June 2016).

@WHO'sNoToOldRx4CovidIsMurder You make one good point here. The "quote" in the question is not actually a quote, but a paraphrase. I clearly missed that earlier. It is a shame we didn't address that very early and get a real quote in its place.

@WHO'sNoToOldRx4CovidIsMurder "Did I say anything untrue?" Yes, you accused me of moving the goalposts, which is normally interpretted as changing the success conditions unfairly in response to an attempt to meet them. I did not do that.