There is no message too hateful to become the centrepiece of a catchy pop parody, the Westboro Baptist Church would have you believe. The infamous evangelical group has created more than 150 pop song parodies, focusing on themes of hell-fire, homophobia and divinely-incurred wrath.

No musical territory is sacred to WBC, whose parodies include hymns, Christmas songs, contemporary chart-toppers and old classics. For a group that abhors so much of popular culture, their attempt to reach out by parodying popular music is one that seems very much at odds with their philosophy and message. In fact, they reserve particular venom for the media and celebrity culture; they own a website entitled “God hates the media” and they are regularly seen brandishing signs with the slogan “God hates your stars”. It is in regards to the media, that, to me, the actions of WBC seem to be at their most hypocritical.

The god of the Westboro Baptist Church hates a lot of people, but the group’s members aren’t ever seen running around imitating drunkards, homosexuals or the British (all objects, apparently, of divine ire). And yet, through their effort to rebrand more than a hundred popular songs and their great attention to detail in parodying every line of these songs, they imitate a group of people they claim God hates, and in this way the Westboro Baptist Church panders to a culture that they pretend to despise. It is far from the group’s only hypocrisy, but it is one of the most overt. So prolific are the Westboro Baptist Church that they must really like doing it, or else they must be convinced their method works.

I was introduced to these songs by a friend of mine, who’s gay and a devout Christian, and we listened feeling a mixture of amusement, bewilderment and despair. The shoddy singing, poor production quality and all-pervasive hypocrisy are laughable, but, for one reason in particular, it was a regrettable experience.

To my horror, some of the lyrics have succeeded in being genuinely catchy. In my memory, the dominant version of Disney’s ‘Let It Go’ is the appaling, homophobic one whose lyrics include, “don’t give the fags any more” and “kick them out and slam the door”. The lyrics are abhorrent, imbecilic, crass and yet, in a small way, the Westboro Baptist Church has triumphed by infiltrating my psyche with their hate, calculatedly harnessing the catchiness of Disney’s award-winning song.

I don’t agree with a word of it, but here their words are, floating around my psyche, bumping out Idina Menzel’s joyous message of self-exoneration with a much more sinister alternative. Disney’s Frozen will forever, through no fault of its own, remind me of the homophobia of the Westboro Baptist Church. The group haven’t been in the news recently, but they force themselves into my mind every time I hear a song that they’ve parodied.

For an organisation that revels in controversy, there really is no such thing as bad publicity. The great success of their propaganda is that, once you have seen (or heard) something shocking, the more difficult it becomes to forget; the harder you try to unsee it, the more firmly it establishes itself in your mind’s eye. By parodying songs, the Westboro Baptist Church aren’t winning converts to their cause, but through their ridiculous, odious, tawdry parodies, they are increasing their presence. And, if they wish to cause a stir, that’s the only thing they really need to do.