Forget online petitions. Instead of urging friends to "sign this petition online" urge them to write an actual physical snail-mail letter to their congressmen and senators. A bag of envelopes dumped on your representatives' desks will do much more than a little tally sheet (which probably just ends up in the trash, anyway. Online petitions cannot be legally binding.)
Well, the link did not work for me, so I was only going on what I had to work with. I don't know what offensive behavior you refer to, nor what the petition hoped to accomplish in retaliation.