Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps (born November 13, 1929) is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, United States, which is best known for its web sites godhatesfags.com and godhatesamerica.com. Gay rights activists, as well as mainstream and some fundamentalist Christians, have denounced him as a producer of anti-gay propaganda and violence-inspiring hate speech.

Biography

Fred Phelps was born in Meridian, Mississippi. Phelps founded Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) in 1955. While running the church, Phelps also worked as an attorney defending the civil rights of African Americans being discriminated against in Kansas. Rev. Phelps alleges that his success resulted in animosity among the white legal establishment and his eventual disbarment by the Kansas Supreme Court for alleged ethical violations. (PDF file of Phelps's point of view on his disbarment)

One unauthorized biography alleges that the year after being disbarred, he continued to practice law in Federal Court before he was finally disbarred from that in 1989 as well, also for ethical violations. His final disbarment resulted from a plea deal through which the Federal Court would stop their disbarment hearings against the rest of his family.

In 1994, a reporter working for Stauffer Communications, Inc., filed a lawsuit about ownership of a book he had been researching for them, which details the life and activities of Phelps. Because the text of the book was entered as Exhibit A, the text became a public document, free to be spread. An anti-Phelps group in Topeka acquired the text, and began distributing it (it was later digitized). A link to one source of the text of this book is included below.

The distributed text describes Phelps as a ferocious child-beater and wife-beater. Most of these claims are endorsed by two of Phelps' sons, but are denied by their other siblings, who are not estranged from Phelps and, though acknowledging that their mother was beaten extensively, they claim they were not harmed to that extent.

Theology

Rev. Phelps's theology is distinctive for the following attributes:

1. The Bible is the Word of God and to be taken literally (2 Peter 1:21).
2. Believing the Five-Points of Calvinism (TULIP) is essential for salvation.
3. Homosexuality is one of the worst sins and indicative of the final reprobation of an individual, and its acceptance by society prompts divine judgement (Leviticus 18:22-24; Romans 1). The homosexual is a reprobate given up by God and hence cannot be a member of God's elect, and cannot repent nor be saved (Romans 1:28; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4; Hebrews 12:16-17). (It should be noted that this interpretation is held by a very small minority of Christians (Romans 10:9))
4. The proclamation of the gospel involves condemning sin as strongly as the Bible does (2 Peter 4:11) and this will result in persecution and rejection of the gospel by the unelect (Luke 6:22; Luke 10:21).
5. Hellfire is to be taken literally (2 Corinthians 5:11), and God's Elect will rejoice in being Christ's agents in executing the righteous judgement of hell on the wicked (Psalms 149:6-9), which will comprise most of humanity that rejects Jesus Christ (Luke 13:23-24).
6. God has absolute omnipotence to cause or prevent tragedy. As such, when disasters occur, such as the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster or the September 11, 2001 attacks, it is God's intentional punishment of the wicked. In the aforementioned cases, Phelps believes these are God's punishment for the United States' "permissive attitudes" concerning homosexuality.

There are also some who believe Phelps no longer has any theological beliefs, and that his behaviour is simply a form of performance art.

Picketing

The group carries out daily picketing in Topeka, and travels nationally to picket the funerals of homosexual victims of murder, gay-bashing or death related to AIDS, as well as other events related or appearing to be related to gay people.

Phelps, his supporters and members of his church ¹ attend said gatherings, as well as other gay-related events, with signs bearing anti-homosexual slogans. Reverend Phelps has characterized the Names Project Quilt as "100,000 living fags slobberin' around 45,000 dead fags," and declared Elizabeth Taylor, a fundraiser for AIDS research, to be a "world-famous Jew whore". Other favorite anti-gay slogans of the Reverend Phelps include "God Hates Fags," "Matthew Shepard Rots In Hell," "AIDS: Kills Fags Dead," and "Ellen DeGeneres Is a Lesbian Slut." (The latter was carried at an "Equality Rocks" rock concert and fundraiser. At the event DeGeneres commented that she wasn't so offended by the slogan as the fact that they had drawn pock marks all over her face on the poster.)

On his web site, Phelps maintains a "Perpetual Gospel Memorial" to gay murder victim Matthew Shepard. There is a similar memorial to lesbian dog-attack victim Diane Whipple. Some direct quotes/images from the Shepard page:

• A photograph of Matthew Shepard's face with animated flames dancing across it.
• A counter which displays how many days Matthew Shepard has "Been in Hell."
• "WBC does not support the murder of Matthew Shepard: "thou shalt not kill." Unless his killers repent, they will receive the same sentence that Matthew Shepard received - eternal fire. However, the truth about Matthew Shepard needs to be known. He lived a Satanic lifestyle. He got himself killed trolling for anonymous homosexual sex in a bar at midnight."

His followers have gone across the country protesting the play The Laramie Project. This play documents the reaction of the people of Laramie, Wyoming after the death of Matthew Shepard. One reason for these protests is that he is a character in the play, and is portrayed negatively; indeed, some of his ardent supporters claim that the play constitutes libel.

Racism

Although not as pronounced as their views on homosexuality, the Westboro Baptist Church appears to espouse a form of racism. However, their racist rhetoric is often a reaction to an opposition to their anti-homosexual speech by a racially-oriented organization.

The Anti-Defamation League catalogs some of the statements of the Westboro Baptist Church that contain overtones of racism against Jews and blacks. In some of the statements, the church made claims that "Jews are the real Nazis", and insisted that Jewish protest against the Topeka church amounts to another "Holocaust".

Anti-Catholicism

Fred Phelps is also anti-Catholic and claims that the Roman Catholic Church is a "fag" church and that a third of Catholic priests are active homosexuals, seducing helpless children and women. He has also reproduced an alledged "Diary of Another Fag Catholic Priest" and claims that "fag priests and dyke nuns is the order of the day for Kansas Catholics. They deserve the sick, perverted leadership that now dooms and damns them".

Notable Activities

September 11 and the Shuttle Columbia

After September 11, Phelps' group went to New York City to protest the rescue efforts going on there. They even brought signs which read "FDNY SIN." Those signs depicted a couple engaged in sodomy. Phelps has repeatedly stated that God hates America as a result of its tolerance of homosexuality, and that the September 11 attacks were an act of divine retribution.

Phelps's group also planned a protest at the funeral of David Charlebois, gay copilot of the plane that was crashed into The Pentagon as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Phelps's church, the Westboro Baptist Church, has also produced flyers asserting that the seven astronauts who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster were in hell.

"God Hates Canada" and "God Hates Sweden"

"God Hates Canada" was launched by Phelps in response to Canada's passage of the controversial Bill C-250, which adds penalties to the Criminal Code of Canada for inciting the hatred of or encouraging the killing of people on the basis of sexual orientation, amongst other things. Bill C-250, authored by New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Svend Robinson, has come under fire from Focus on the Family and other conservative religious groups based on the argument that it prohibits the preaching of various Scripture condemning homosexuality. Supporters of the bill consider this argument groundless due to provisions that protect religious groups from prosecution should they criticise homosexual behaviour in a way that does not promote hatred. Phelps had previously targeted Canada, coming to Ottawa in 1999 to protest the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in M v. H, which gave same-sex couples the same rights as opposite-sex common-law couples.

In 2004, Phelps and his church began picketing all things Swedish in response to the prosecution of Swedish pastor Åke Green on hate-speech charges for comments Green made about homosexuals, comments not nearly as provocative as Phelps' typical rhetoric. (Green has called Phelps' rhetoric "appaling" and "extremely unpleasant".) Among the targets picketed by the Phelps family were the town of Lindsborg, Kansas (which promotes itself as "Little Sweden, USA"), and Swedish-based companies such as IKEA, Electrolux, and Absolut Vodka. A monument to Green was installed on the WBC website and Phelps announced plans to picket in Sweden in 2005. While the Phelps family never shows up for the majority of the pickets it announces on its website, it would be the family's first picket in Europe.

Fred Phelps' confrontations with Scandinavian leaders dates back to an unfulfilled 2000 promise to picket the inauguration of the first Finnish female president Tarja Halonen and burn the Finnish flag on the steps of the parliament building.

Indian Ocean earthquake

On December 29, 2004, shortly after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, Phelps's church published a flyer [1] headlined "Thank God for Tsunami and 20,000 dead Swedes!!!", calling Sweden the "land of the sodomite damned" and saying "woe to faggot Sweden." Shortly after this, more fliers were produced, welcoming reports of 5,000 Swedes (later reduced to 2,000) and 3,000 Americans killed in the tsunami. Another of the group's fliers expressed hope "that God will send a massive tsunami to totally devastate the North American continent". The group have also threatened to picket Swedish survivors at various locations on the island of Phuket on 16 and 17 January 2004. The fliers and threat provoked criticism from numerous people who had otherwise been ignoring Phelps.

Health

In Topeka, Kansas, there is much speculation regarding Phelps's health. He is reported to be suffering from an advanced form of cancer or Parkinson's Disease and has made few recent appearances.

External links

Phelps's sites

• godhatesfags.com
• godhatesamerica.com, and a sample page:
  • God Blew Up the Shuttle!!!
• godhatescanada.com
• godhatessweden.com

Supporters of Phelps

• bartmcqueary.com Bart McQueary is a fictional character based on Phelps. The anonymous author of the site links to numerous articles on Phelps' website and appears to support him obliquely.

Critics of Phelps

• godlovesfags.com
• godhatesfigs.com—a spoof of Phelps's original site
• godhatesrags.com—another spoof of Phelps's original site
• godhatesglobes.com—a spoof that encourages social action against fundamentalist governmental policies
• godhatesshrimp.com—another spoof of Phelps's original site
• BaptistWatch.org—contains the autobiography of Phelps entered as an exhibit in the Stauffer Communictions Inc. lawsuit
• godhatesfredphelps.com — now off-line (see http://web.archive.org/web/20040131005206/http://www.godhatesfredphelps.com/ )
• Rotten.com's biographical summary of Phelps

Relatively neutral

• Hate for the love of God -- biographical special section from the Topeka Capital-Journal, first published in 1994
• Addicted to Hate: The Fred Phelps Story -- The full text of the book, mentioned in the article above.

Footnotes

Note 1: According to various sources that are critical of Rev. Phelps and his activities, his congregation is made up largely of his extended family, or those influenced by his work. For one such source see Fred Phelps Exposé.