Many of them are civil rights lawyers, though there are also prison guards, IT professionals and other things. At least as of 2004-05 time (when I filmed a short documentary on them and got to know them a bit) they're main business wasn't suing people that attacked them. They have sued counties for breaching their constitutional right to protest and I'd imagine they've sued some of the people that have attacked them, but it's infrequent for them to be attacked at a picket. They have a thriving civil rights firm that does most of it's business outside of anything to do with their pickets. Fred Phelps is actually an old civil rights hero. Many of them compare the reaction of people attacking them now to the same reaction they got from people when they fought for equal rights for all races. Obviously they are repugnant people and it might be more fun to believe they are just evil lawyers out to make a buck...but they honestly do believe what they preach and are well intentioned. Lying to make them seem worse is pointless and brings us down to their level. They can be broken people who aren't out to profiteer. Hell, that's true with most things. Rarely are their conspiracies, for the most part humans are just that inept.