Fred Phelps - WikiHQ

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The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Missouri on behalf of Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church to overturn the ban on the picketing of soldier's funerals. The ACLU of Ohio also filed a similar lawsuit.

In the case of Snyder v. Phelps, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "distasteful and repugnant" protests surrounding funerals of service members were protected by the First Amendment. But attorneys for the service member's family appealed the decision on the grounds that such speech should not be allowed to inflict emotional distress on private parties exercising their freedom of religion during a funeral service. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on October 6, 2010, and ruled 8–1 in favor of Phelps in an opinion released on March 2, 2011.

People targeted by Phelps

thumb|Phelps picketing outside the [[Kansas State Capitol]]

Beginning in the early 1990s, Phelps targeted numerous individuals and groups in the public eye for criticism by the Westboro Baptist Church.

Prominent examples include President Ronald Reagan, Princess Diana, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, National Football League star Reggie White, Sonny Bono, comedian George Carlin, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, atheists, Muslims, murdered college student Matthew Shepard, children's television host Fred Rogers, American televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, Heath Ledger, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill O'Reilly, filmmaker Richard Rossi, film critic Roger Ebert, Catholics, Australians, Swedes, the Irish, and US soldiers killed in Iraq. He also targeted the Joseph Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts, center of the David Parker controversy.

Phelps also picketed memorials to victims of different mass shootings, including the spreading of unfounded theories, such as saying that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, were gay, saying that "Two filthy fags slaughtered 13 people at Columbine High."

In 2006, in the aftermath of the West Nickel Mines School shooting, where five Amish girls were murdered, Phelps mocked the shooting, saying that it had been caused by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's criticism of Westboro. Phelps further planned a protest at the funeral for the five girls murdered, but called it off, opting to spread their messages on a local radio station instead.

Phelps continued picketing funerals and memorials for victims of mass shootings during the late 2000s, including the plan to picket the memorial for two victims of the Northern Illinois University shooting in 2008, which was countered by a preacher who hosted a seminar against Phelps' views. After Phelps announced plans, as aforementioned, to picket the funeral of the youngest victim of the 2011 Tucson shooting on Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, Phelps responded to the emergency legislation which banned him from doing so, by praising the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, saying: "Thank God for the violent shooter", and labeled Loughner as a "hero". In 2007, he stated that he would target Jerry Falwell's funeral.

Phelps' daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, has appeared on Fox News Channel, defending the WBC and attacking homosexuality. She and her children have also appeared on the Howard Stern radio show attempting to promote their agenda and church. Phelps' followers have repeatedly protested the University of Kansas School of Law's graduation ceremonies.

In August 2007, in the wake of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge collapse, Phelps and his congregation stated that they would protest at the funerals of the victims. In a statement, the church said that Minneapolis is the "land of the Sodomite damned".

Political activities

Anti-gay

In the movie Hatemongers, members of the Westboro Baptist Church state their children were being "accosted" by homosexuals in Gage Park, about a mile from the Phelps' home and a mile northwest of Westboro Baptist Church. Shirley Phelps-Roper says that, in the late 1980s, Fred Phelps claimed to have witnessed a homosexual attempting to lure her then five-year-old son Joshua into some shrubbery. After several complaints to the local government about the large amount of homosexual sex occurring in the park, with no resulting action, the Phelpses put up signs warning of homosexual activity. This resulted in much negative attention for the family. When the Phelpses called on local churches to speak against the activity in Gage Park, the churches also lashed out against the Phelps family, leading to the family protesting homosexuality on a regular basis. Topeka voters defeated the repeal measure on March 1, 2005, by a 53–47% margin. In the same election, Phelps' granddaughter Jael was an unsuccessful candidate for the Topeka City Council, seeking to replace Tiffany Muller, the first openly gay member of the council.

Electoral politics

thumb|Phelps speaking at a picket at the [[2004 Democratic National Convention]]

Phelps ran in Kansas Democratic Party primaries five times, but never won. These included races for governor in 1990, 1994, and 1998, receiving about 15 percent of the vote in 1998. In the 1992 Democratic Party primary for U.S. Senate, Phelps received 31 percent of the vote. Phelps ran for mayor of Topeka in 1993 and 1997.

Phelps and the WBC actively supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic Party presidential primary election, with reports stating that Phelps and his church provided housing and other support for campaign workers in Kansas. Phelps' son, Fred Phelps Jr., was selected to be one of Gore's delegates from Kansas at the Democratic Party Convention in Atlanta. In his 1984 Senate campaign, Gore ran on a platform that included opposition to a "gay bill of rights" and stated that homosexuality was not something that "society should affirm." By 2000, Gore had publicly changed his official stance on gay rights to more closely align with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Phelps stated that he supported Gore because of these earlier comments.

In 1996 Phelps opposed Clinton's (and Gore's) re-election because of the administration's support for gay rights; the Westboro congregation picketed a 1997 inaugural ball.

Saddam Hussein

In 1997, Phelps wrote a letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, praising his regime for being "the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets".

Arrests and traveling restrictions

United States

In 1994, Phelps was convicted of disorderly conduct for verbal harassment, and received two suspended 30-day jail sentences.

United Kingdom

On February 18, 2009, two days before the Westboro Baptist Church's first UK picket, the United Kingdom Home Office announced that Fred Phelps and Shirley Phelps-Roper would be refused entry and that "other church members could also be flagged and stopped if they tried to enter Britain". In May 2009, he and his daughter Shirley were placed on the Home Office's list of people barred from entering the UK for "fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence".

In the media

In 1993, Phelps appeared on a first-season episode of the talk show Ricki Lake, alleging that homosexuals and "anyone who carries the AIDS virus" deserved to die. When Phelps and his son-in-law Charles Hockenbarger (married to Phelps' daughter Rachel) became increasingly belligerent, Lake ordered the Phelps family to leave the studio. During a commercial break, the two were forced off the set and escorted out of the building by security. After Phelps died, Lake tweeted that when he had been on the show, he had told her that she worshipped her own rectum — a remark that led her to take action off-stage to have Phelps removed from the set.

The Phelps family was the subject of the 2007 TV program The Most Hated Family in America, presented on the BBC by Louis Theroux. Four years after his original documentary, Theroux produced a follow-up program America's Most Hated Family in Crisis, which was prompted by news of family members leaving the church. Phelps' son Nate has broken ranks with the family and in an interview with Peter W. Klein on the Canadian program The Standard, he characterized his father as abusive and warned the Phelps family could turn violent. Writing in response to Phelps' death in 2014, Theroux described Phelps as "an angry bigot who thrived on conflict", and expressed the view that his death would not lead to any "huge changes" in the church, as he saw it as operating with the dynamics of a large family rather than a cult. Theroux returned for a third documentary in 2019, titled Surviving America's Most Hated Family.

Kevin Smith produced a horror film titled Red State featuring a religious fundamentalist villain inspired by Phelps.

Phelps appeared in A Union in Wait, a 2001 Sundance Channel documentary film about same-sex marriage, directed by Ryan Butler after Phelps picketed Wake Forest Baptist Church at Wake Forest University over a proposed same-sex union ceremony.

Excommunication and death

Fred Phelps preached his final Sunday sermon on September 1, 2013. Five weeks later, sermons resumed from various members.

On March 15, 2014, Nathan Phelps, Phelps' estranged son, reported that Phelps was in very poor health and was receiving hospice care. He said that Phelps had been excommunicated from the church in August 2013, and then moved into a house where he "basically stopped eating and drinking". His statements were supported by his brother, Mark. Church spokesman Steve Drain declined to answer questions about Phelps' excommunication, and denied that the church had a single leader. The church's official website said that membership status is private and did not confirm or deny the excommunication.

Phelps died of natural causes shortly before midnight on March 19, 2014, at the age of 84. His daughter, Shirley, stated that a funeral for her father would not be held because the church does not "worship the dead". and according to his granddaughter Megan Phelps-Roper, Phelps' cremated remains were buried in an unmarked grave in Kansas.

Phelps had been reportedly suffering from some form of dementia in his final year, and started behaving

irrationally. This led to church members believing that God had condemned him. It has been stated that Phelps "had a softening of heart at the end of his life," according to accounts published in a memoir written by Phelps' granddaughter Megan Phelps-Roper, and reporting from The New Yorker citing former members of the church. In an interview with NPR, Megan Phelps-Roper said this outburst was "the proximate cause" of Phelps being excommunicated, a claim that the church has denied. According to Phelps' grandson and former church member Zach Phelps-Roper, Phelps' actions were regarded as "rank blasphemy" by the church members.

Electoral history

Democratic primary for Governor of Kansas, 1990

Joan Finney: 81,250 (47.18%)
John Carlin: 79,406 (46.11%)
Fred Phelps: 11,572 (6.72%)

Democratic primary for United States Senate, Kansas 1992

Gloria O'Dell: 111,015 (69.20%)
Fred Phelps: 49,416 (30.80%)

Democratic primary for Governor of Kansas, 1994

Jim Slattery: 84,389 (53.02%)
Joan Wagnon: 42,115 (26.46%)
Jim Francisco: 16,048 (10.08%)
Leslie Kitchenmaster: 11,253 (7.07%)
Fred Phelps: 5,349 (3.36%)

Democratic primary for Governor of Kansas, 1998

Tom Sawyer: 88,248 (85.28%)
Fred Phelps: 15,233 (14.72%)

Family tree

References

External links

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Phelps' life turned from brilliance to hatred from The Topeka Capital-Journal

: For external links related to Westboro Baptist Church and not Phelps specifically, see this section.

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