The White House's Reply to Westboro Baptist Church Is as Simple as a GIF

In response to five different petitions from sane people asking the White House to recognize the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group, the administration has released this passive-aggressive GIF map, showing the source of signatures from across the country for one of the most popular petitions in the history of the "We the People" site.

The thing about the Obama administration's "We the People" site is, the Obama administration has to respond once an issue receives enough signatures — no matter how much it wants to ignore something or someone. Now, in response to five different petitions from sane people asking the White House to recognize the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group, the administration has released this passive-aggressive GIF, showing where all those signatures came from:

See, a lot of people all over the place dislike WBC as much as you do. Other than that, the White House can't really do or say much of anything about the hateful protesters who show up at funerals and more peaceful events with bigot-laden rallies. "To the extent that these petitions request a particular law enforcement or adjudicatory action, we cannot issue a comment," reads the White House response, titled simply Here's What We Have to Say About the Westboro Baptist Church. "In addition, as a matter of practice, the federal government doesn't maintain a list of hate groups."

Two of the five petitions asked the Obama administration to officially recognize WBC as a hate group, while the other three asked to revoke the tax-exempt status of the organization. Other than pointing to legislation that pushes the protestors out of military funerals, that's about the extent of the official word regarding one of the most popular petitions in We the People history.