Westboro Baptist Church is an organization based in Topeka, Kansas, headed by minister Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr. and notorious for running and other websites expressing its condemnation of various groups (see "WBC Websites" below). Although its members identify themselves as Baptists, the church is not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations (however, there are numerous independent Baptist churches throughout the United States that are unaffiliated with such groups). The church describes itself as following Primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles, though it has been accused by others of Hyper-Calvinism.

The group bases much of its work around the belief that "God hates fags" (its best known slogan and the address of its primary website) and expresses the opinion that nearly all tragedy in the world is somehow linked to homosexuality (specifically society's increasing tolerance and acceptance of gay, lesbian and bisexual people); they believe God hates homosexuals above all other kinds of sinners.

The organization is monitored as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Not only is Westboro opposed by supporters of gay rights, but the vast majority of Christian groups (even those who agree with Westboro that homosexuality is a sin) oppose Westboro's theology and practice, believing it to be incompatible with traditional Christian teachings.

Overview

"GOD HATES FAGS" -- though elliptical -- is a profound theological statement, which the world needs to hear more than it needs oxygen, water and bread.

The church is located in the basement of Fred Phelps Sr.'s home, which sits in a large fenced compound occupied by nine of his thirteen children and their spouses (the other four children are estranged from the group). The vast majority of Westboro members are related to Phelps Sr. by blood or marriage.

The group frequently pickets (and in some cases are alleged to have stalked) people, the majority of whom have never had any interaction with the group, but are instead singled out either for being gay or lesbian, making a statement that in Westboro's opinion either endorses gay rights or fails to take a sufficient stand against homosexuality or because picketing that person would generate publicity for the group. The group brands most of its opponents "fags" (often without regard to their actual sexual orientation), or failing that, "fag enablers."

While from 1991 to 2004 the group spent a large portion of its time almost exclusively picketing businesses and events they believed to endorse homosexuality, in 2005 they changed their strategy entirely and now almost exclusively picket the funerals of soldiers killed in the war in Iraq. This is based around Phelps Sr.'s belief that the soldiers are being allowed to die by God as punishment for America's alleged sins against God, which Westboro has alternatively claimed as America's acceptance of homosexuality or a 1995 pipe bomb which exploded outside the home of one of Westboro's members, that Westboro claims was in retaliation for its activities (the bomber was found to be a college student responsible for several other such explosions around Topeka, with no ties to any anti-Westboro group).

The group has attracted controversy for welcoming both individual murders and large-scale disasters as divine retribution against gay and lesbian people, atheists, witches, and their "enablers," or America in general. Nearly every time that a massive tragedy or disaster strikes in which people are killed or wounded, Westboro Baptist Church quickly thereafter releases a statement that its members are celebrating the deaths and injuries as they believe the tragedy was "divine retribution" from God. Church members claim to achieve "divine enjoyment" hearing stories of pain and suffering befalling people that they consider sinful and that their only regret when such incidents occur is that more allegedly sinful people hadn't suffered; they further claim that they pray for tragedy such as car accidents, plane crashes, sexual assault, natural disasters and health problems to befall people so that they may ridicule them on their website and, hopefully, picket them.

In 2005 members of Westboro began compiling stories and poems (collectively titled WBC Epics) which they have written about their "adventures" (some of which purportedly never took place), as well as "Hate Letters" to their detractors.

Westboro has been recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt church for several years. In 2000 Westboro nearly lost its status completely, but was saved by a series of lawsuits it filed against the IRS citing religious persecution. However, Westboro has been steadily losing some of its tax exemptions (see below section "The Westboro Compound"), and remains in constant risk of losing its tax-exempt status altogether.

Phelps Sr. has worked with leaders of the racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity movement, which believes that caucasians are God's "chosen people", and that Jews are, and have been for years, waging a war against the white race in an attempt to subvert their birthright (a sentiment that Phelps Sr. has echoed on several occasions). At least two members of Westboro are members of the Identity movement. However, this is not a prominent theme of Phelps Sr.'s preaching or of Westboro's activities.

The Westboro compound

The Westboro facility is organized as a fortified compound, made up of ten homes organized in a block at 3701 SW 12th Street in Topeka. The house in the center of the compound belongs to Phelps Sr., the basement of which serves as the church "meeting hall" (as he refers to it). The other nine houses were once occupied by non-congregants, who moved away either on their own initiative or as a result of not wanting to live near Phelps Sr. and Westboro, and are now occupied by the families of Phelps Sr.'s nine children still associated with Westboro. The properties are encircled by a specially designed, extra-thick ten foot tall security fence with picketed tops. Outside of the compound are US and Canadian flags that fly non-stop (and are lit up at night), in an upside down position. Westboro's stated reason for flying the flags upside down (given on the FAQ page of one of its web sites), is that an upside down flag is "the international sign for distress" and that America is in distress because "our national support of perversity is bringing God's wrath upon us." The church website address is prominently displayed on the exterior of one of the houses.

Westboro services, according to its website, are open to the public and begin at approximately 11:30 on Sunday mornings. Phelps Sr. generally preaches for over an hour.

The homes share a communal backyard, in the center of which once sat an Olympic size swimming pool; Phelps Sr. previously obtained tax exemption on the cost of maintenance and water by performing baptisms there and writing it off as a baptismal font. Sometime after 2000, the pool was filled in. No official reason has been given, but two theories have developed. One theory states that, according to Topeka residents, sometime around 2000 one of Phelps Sr.'s grandchildren nearly drowned in the pool and thus it was removed for safety reasons. The other theory holds that the pool was filled in because Westboro lost, or was about to lose, its tax exemption status on it.

The compound also includes a garage separate from the houses, which is used to store an extended cab/extended bed Ford F-150 pickup truck used to transport Westboro's picketers around Topeka and elsewhere. It can seat between seven and ten people and carries dozens of picket signs in the back; until recently, the truck was painted neon colors to resemble one of Westboro's picket signs and was emblazoned with Westboro's well-known phrase "GOD HATES FAGS" (in recent years it was either repainted to resemble a standard factory paint job, or a new Ford was obtained). Until 2000, Phelps Sr. had written off the cost of maintaining the garage and the vehicle's fuel costs as church expenses; that year the IRS ruled that Phelps Sr. was using the truck for political and personal purposes, not religious, and revoked the tax exemption on the truck and garage.

Composition of the Westboro membership

Main article: Members of Westboro Baptist Church

Research done by the Topeka Capital Journal in 1994 indicated that the church has roughly 100 to 200 congregants, most of whom are related to Phelps Sr. by blood or marriage. Individuals who followed Phelps Sr. after he was voted out of his old congregation, Eastside Baptist Church (a traditional Baptist church), consisted of the Hockenbargers (whose offspring later married into the Phelps clan), George Stutzman, Chris Davis (who also married into the Phelps clan) and Theresa Davis (whose relationship, if any, to Chris Davis is unknown). Around 2000, another family (Steve and Luci Drain, along with daughters Laura and Taylor) joined the group after Steve Drain, while taping a documentary on religious groups, interviewed several Westboro members and came to accept their theology. The Drains are not related to the Phelpses.

The Hockenbarger family which left Eastside to follow Phelps is headed by Charles William "Bill" Hockenbarger, a member of Christian Identity. Hockenbarger has been a friend of Phelps Sr. since the two men were in their twenties. In 2002, one of Phelps Sr.'s grandsons married one of the Hockenbarger granddaughters, with Phelps performing the ceremony. Karl Hockenbarger, the son of Bill Hockenbarger (and also an Identity member) worked for Washburn University (where Phelps Sr. graduated in 1962) and played a large role in getting Phelps Sr.'s children accepted there.

Phelps does not permit Westboro members to marry persons outside the church. As relatively few individuals have joined Westboro, this has resulted in some "incestuous" relationships, where a sister married an adopted brother (though there is no legal evidence that the adoption was made official), and at least two marriages between the Phelps and Hockenbarger clans, resulting in some members having dual relations (one member is both the aunt and sister-in-law of another).

Purpose

Phelps has stated many purposes for Westboro, some of which appear to be inherently contradictory. Note the statements below, which indicate that their purpose is to cause people not to repent and to repent at the same time:

We don't picket to win people over, idiot. It's to harden people's hearts. Make them hate. Make them hate God even more than they already do.

Our goal is to preach the Word of God to this crooked and perverse generation. By our words, some will repent. By our words, some will be condemned. Whether they hear, or whether they forbear, they will know a prophet has been among them.. our goal is to glorify God by declaring His whole counsel to everyone.. we hope that by our preaching some will be saved.

The members of Westboro Baptist Church explain their decision to use the word fag, a largely pejorative term for gay men, in their FAQ:

We use the word "fag" as a contraction of the word "faggot" or "fagot." A "fag" is a firebrand. A "fag" is used for kindling — it fuels fire. "Fag" is a metaphor used in the Bible, for example, in Amos 4:11 (where it is translated "firebrand" in the KJV). Just as a "fag" fuels the fires of nature, so does a sodomite fuel the fires of God's wrath. We do not use the word "fag" in order to engage in childish name-calling. Rather, we use it because it is a metaphor chosen by the Holy Ghost to describe a group of people who BURN in their lust one toward another, and who FUEL God's wrath.

Theology

Westboro refers to itself as a Primitive or "Old School" Baptist and claims to adhere to the philosophy of John Calvin and the principles of the acronym TULIP.

The "stated" theology of Westboro reads as follows (it is no longer available on the church website):

1. The Bible is the Word of God and to be taken literally.
2. The scriptures are to be preached in the bluntest and plainest manner possible, without regard to their ability to influence people, nor with any consideration to the personal gain of the preacher.
3. Believing the Five-Points of Calvinism is essential for salvation.
4. Homosexuality is the worst of all sins and indicative of the final reprobation of an individual, and its acceptance by society prompts divine judgement. The homosexual is a reprobate given up by God and hence cannot be a member of God's elect, and cannot repent or be saved. (Note: Elsewhere on the website in the FAQ section, Westboro indicates that homosexuals can repent; possibly this relates to individuals who have "dabbled" in homosexual relationships but are not committed to such a lifestyle.)
5. 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.
6. There is absolutely no salvation outside of Westboro Baptist Church. Therefore, it is a sin to offer any type of aid or support to anybody or any human institution in the world except for WBC.
7. The proclamation of the gospel involves condemning sin as strongly as the Bible does and this will result in persecution and rejection of the gospel by the unelect.
8. Hellfire is to be taken literally and God's Elect will rejoice in being Christ's agents in executing the righteous judgement of hell on the wicked, which will comprise all of humanity with the exception of their church.
9. The elect, being the chosen agents of God, answer only to God and are above the laws of man which do not have basis in God's law.
10. Christmas, Easter and all other theologically based holidays have basis in Paganism, and are therefore not to be celebrated by the elect.
11. It is a
    
    
    
    sin not to rejoice when other people are victims of tragedy, violence or suffering.
12. WBC has repeatedly prayed for sin, evil, murder, violence, death, disease, natural disasters, war, terrorism and total destruction for every individual not in their church. In addition, they hope and pray that everybody - save themselves - will burn in hell for all eternity.

Though Westboro is not officially identified with the King James-Only Movement, all its references on its website quote the King James version of the Bible and some of its "Hate Letters" listed on its website recommended that the writer obtain a King James Bible. WBC theology resembles Hyper-Calvinism, but pushes the doctrine even further than Hyper-Calvinists. This has satirically been dubbed as Über-Calvinism

Westboro also holds the belief that they are essentially stand-ins for God on earth and that saying anything negative about them is equal to saying something negative about God (which is to say it is blasphemy and therefore unforgivable). Thus, they elevate themselves to a God-like status and believe themselves to hold power over salvation and condemnation (in fliers, members equate insulting WBC with blasphemy of the Holy Ghost, the single unforgivable sin).

Westboro holds a vision of the apocalypse which is unique to their theology and based heavily on point #6 above, that when the end of the world comes, all the souls of men and women will be brought into a celestial courtroom with God presiding as judge. Westboro envisions the souls of humanity (aside from themselves, who in their view are the only elect of God) as being reduced, in their own words, to "sobbing little girls knowing and getting what they deserve". God will then call forward his "expert witnesses" — Westboro's congregants — to testify against the sins of all humanity and thereby be instrumental in getting the souls of all mankind (save for themselves) cast into Hell.

Sky Television report

A 2005 investigative "hidden camera" report by British network Sky Television resulted in a "testimonial" with two of Phelps' granddaughters, Libby and Jael, which further illustrated Westboro's attitude of glee towards the suffering of others and their belief that no one, except themselves, will be saved. In the testimonial, Libby and Jael explain that they hope and pray that no one outside of Westboro becomes "elect," because they want everyone else in the world to die horribly and burn in Hell, and that even if they didn't believe their actions were dictated by God, they would still do and enjoy them anyway. (The interview was not part of the hidden camera segment, and despite the fact that much of the footage was taped without the knowledge or permission of Westboro, the church maintains a link to the entire report on its website).

Quotes from Phelps' Sermons

These quotes came from an audio file of sermon clips on satanlovesfredphelps.com.

• "America is doomed and cursed by God irreversibly".
• "It’s too late to pray for America. It’s a sin to pray for America".
• " Rita is an answer to the prayers of the suffering saints of Westboro Baptist Church".
• "The Lord God Almighty killed , looked at them in the face, laughed and mocked at each one of them as he cast each one of them into hell".
• "Nobody that’s intelligent and that fears God will fly the American flag any way but upside-down, the international symbol of distress".
• "All ye having business before this honorable Court draw nigh, give your attention and ye shall be heard. No, no. Draw nigh and bend over. They’re gonna rape up the butt".
• "The President of the United States gets his jollies masturbating horses". (This was a reference to Laura Bush's recollection of her husband's attempt to milk a male horse).
• "The hell with your flag. The hell with your fag army, your fag courts, your fag-run government".
• "This is the hypocritical, fag-infested, fag-run United States of America and we’re supposed to respect that fag rag flag?"
• "The red on that flag stands for fag rectal blood".
• "On Pope John Paul II’s watch, the Catholic Church became the church of the holy pedophiles. And sodomite feces replaced the wafer for their communion service. And Sodomite semen replaced the wine that the Pope drinks".
• "1.07 billion members of that monstrous machine called the Roman Catholic Church. Every last one of them going to hell".

Similarities to the Christian Identity movement

While not known to be directly connected to the Christian Identity movement, many of Phelps' sermons do reflect some of the principles which the followers of Christian Identity also hold:

• Westboro holds that they (the congregants of Westboro) and not Israelites are the "chosen people" and that Jews are "filthy" and "have no lamb".
• Phelps has been accused of preaching that black people were born of Ham, the son of Noah, as a punishment for ridiculing Noah and that black people are therefore the "servants of the servant" (meant to be subservient to God's people, i.e. Westboro).
• The United States is the true Israel.
• In their WBC Epics, Westboro members declare that they are the last line of defense against the true forces of evil in the world and will be the sole survivors of Judgment Day; when that time comes, they will be recognized as God's Chosen and the rest of the world will be cast into Hell.

In the 1980s, Phelps was a regular guest on Scriptures for America, a program of Christian Identity teachings, hosted by Peter J. Peters. Tapes of Phelps' appearances on the show, as well as tapes of his regular sermons, are sold in Christian Identity mail-order catalogues.

In addition, WBC members Karl and Charles William Hockenbarger are actual members of the Christian Identity.

Activities and statements

The group carries out daily picketing in Topeka (purportedly six per day with fifteen on Sunday, "Lord willing", per the index page of its main website) and travels nationally to picket the funerals of gay and lesbian victims of murder, gay-bashing or death related to AIDS, including Matthew Shepard, as well as other events related or appearing to be related to gay people. They have also shown interest in picketing productions of the play The Laramie Project. Recently, they have shifted their interest to picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq War, believing this to be more of "God's judgment" on America. The FAQ section of the website states that, in their view, soldiers didn't join the military out of a sense of patriotism, but because they are "lazy, incompetent idiots" unable to find work elsewhere.

One of Westboro's followers estimated that the church spends $250,000 a year travelling around the world to picket. In the 1990s the church won a series of lawsuits against the City of Topeka and Shawnee County for hindering their picketing. As a result, the church was awarded approximately $200,000 in attorney's fees and costs associated with the litigation. Otherwise, all of the church's money comes from the combined income of its congregants and money won in lawsuits against their enemies (filing lawsuits appears to be Westboro's second-largest activity after protesting – Phelps is a disbarred attorney and several of his children are also attorneys – and Westboro has had success in winning lawsuits or reaching out of court settlements).

Phelps Sr., his supporters and members of his church attend the aforementioned gatherings, as well as other gay-related events, with signs bearing anti-gay slogans. Phelps Sr. has characterized the AIDS Memorial 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" and a "filthy Jew whore". Other regular anti-gay slogans of Westboro include "Homosexuality = Death", "Fags Die, God Laughs", "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 offended so much by the slogan as the fact that they had drawn pock marks all over her face on the poster.)

Other slogans are:

• Fag Santa (carried at Christmas time)
• Thank God for 9-11
• Thank God for the Tsunami
• Thank God for Katrina
• God Hates You
• Menninger Therapy (complete with two stick figures mounting)
• Thank God for AIDS
• Fag Flag (with an American flag)
• Repent or Perish
• Dyke Nuns and Fag Priests (carried outside Catholic churches)
• Dyke Sows Wed Here (complete with pictures of pigs in wedding dresses covered with feces; carried at lesbian weddings)
• Brides of Satan (referring to lesbian weddings)
• Fags Doom Nations (Image)
• Fags Are Worthy of Death (Image)
• Fags Eat Feces = Scat
• Thank God for Dead Soldiers
• Don't Worship the Dead
• Thank God for IEDs
• Fag Troops

When Kevin Oldham, a gay musician, died of AIDS in 1993, Phelps Sr. sent a photo of Kevin to his parents. The photo contained the caption: "Kevin Oldham: Dead Fag".

The group came into the national spotlight in 1998, when they were featured on CNN for picketing the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man from Wyoming who was beaten to death by two young males. Though Phelps Sr. claimed that Shepard's murder was unjust (and the Westboro's website states that Shepard's murderers face the same fate as Shepard - eternity in hell unless they repent), his overt activism against Shepard's sexual orientation, regardless of the mourning of Shepard's family and friends (he called Shephard's mother, Judy, a whore and a "mother from Hell" during the memorial service and told her she'd "soon be joining Matthew"), to some had the appearance of a tacit endorsement for Shepard's murder.

On Westboro's website, Phelps Sr. maintains a "Perpetual Gospel Memorial" to Shephard. 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. When the cursor is moved across his face, viewers with a sound card will hear screams and a high-pitched voice shrieking "For God's sake, listen to Phelps!"
• 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".

The group has also picketed Billy Graham revivals, alleging that the conservative evangelist will burn in Hell for failing to propagate the "God Hates Fags" doctrine. In October 2004, the group protested Graham's mass meetings, calling the 85 year-old preacher a "Hell-bound false prophet".

In a 1994 interview, WBC members Timothy and Jonathan Phelps (sons of Phelps Sr.) admitted to beating their wives and children as a means of discipline and "keeping them in line". (Phelps Sr. suggested this early in his ministry - see the Fred Phelps entry for details - and his estranged sons state that they and their mother were often victims of domestic violence). However, in press releases, WBC referred to Topeka mayor James McClinton as a "wife-beating tyrant". McClinton, who is black, was portrayed in the press release as a gorilla in a suit with a swastika armband.

In July 2005, the Westboro Baptist Church declared its intention to picket the memorial service of Cpl. Carrie French in Boise, Idaho. French, aged 19 years old, was killed on June 5 in the city of Kirkuk, Iraq, where she served as an ammunition specialist with the 116th Brigade Combat Team's 145th Support Battalion. Her death is seen by the church as divine punishment of the United States. Phelps Sr. was quoted as saying, "Our attitude toward what's happening with the war is the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime".

The Westboro Baptist Church declared its intention to picket the funerals of other soldiers as well and did so in August 2005. A group from the church protested at the funeral of Spc. Edward Myers, a soldier from St. Joseph, Missouri, who died in Iraq. Shirley Phelps-Roper (one of Phelps Sr.'s daughters and main author of the WBC Epics and Hate Letters) told a television reporter, "Who would serve a nation that is Godless and has flipped off, defiantly defied, defiantly flipped off, the Lord their God?" She then reiterated her belief that Myers was burning in Hell.

In spite of the group's insistence that it always follows through on its announced pickets, there have been innumerable instances in which no member of the church has ever arrived at an announced picket. Instead, in many instances fake 'epics' have been posted on the website. Those who write in to challenge WBC's claims that they were present at an event when they were not, are accused of blasphemy and told that they will go to Hell for daring to question WBC.

Criminal record

The arrest record for members of Westboro dates back to 1951, four years before the church's inception, when Phelps Sr. was arrested for misdemeanor battery in Pasadena, California, for striking a police officer. It wasn't until 1987 that other members of Westboro faced criminal charges; the first series stemmed from disbarment hearings against Phelps Sr. and his children in 1987, during which Fred Phelps and several of his children, Margie Phelps, Jon Phelps, Elizabeth Phelps, Shirley Phelps-Roper and Fred Phelps Jr., were charged with extortion, witness intimidation, harassment, making false accusations and filing frivolous lawsuits. Phelps Sr. struck a plea bargain wherein he would resign from the bar and never practice law again, in exchange for charges against his children being dropped and their disbarrment hearings brought to a close in lieu of brief suspensions.

Throughout the course of the 1990s and into the 2000s, Westboro members continued to be arrested. However, the Topeka District Attorney often declines to pursue charges, on the grounds that every time charges are pressed against Westboro or one of its members, Westboro and all of its members retaliate by filing class action lawsuits against the city, the police department and the complainant.

On occasion, however, members have been convicted, albeit for minor offenses. Jonathan Baxter Phelps, whom Topekans consider to be the Phelps son most like his father, is the Westboro member most often cited in complaints (aside from Phelps Sr.). Jon Phelps has been arrested the most of any of the Westboro clan, most often for assault. Topekan residents told the Topeka Capital Journal in 1993 during their research for the book "Addicted to Hate" that Jon Phelps regularly "shrieks" obscene comments to passers by at pickets, including threats of sexual assault to women. In 1993 he was taken into custody for

In 1993, Charles F. Hockenbarger, Karl Hockenbarger, Timothy Phelps, Jonathan Phelps, Phelps Sr. and Margie Phelps were brought up on a variety of criminal charges stemming from information gathered following a raid of Westboro. Several charges were later dropped; the trials that followed saw every member of Westboro Baptist Church over the age of fifteen testifying in the defense of their family and fellow congregants; over 100 defense witnesses were called in all. Timothy Phelps, Charles F. Hockenbarger and Karl Hockenbarger were all found not guilty. Jon Phelps was found guilty of witness intimidation and misdemeanor battery, while Margie Phelps was found guilty of filing a false report and Phelps Sr. was found guilty of disorderly conduct as defined by aggravated intimidation of a witness; all three lost their appeals. All six filed lawsuits against the city and took their cases to appeals court, where their lawsuits were dismissed.

In 1995, Phelps Sr.'s eldest grandson, Benjamin Phelps, was convicted of assault and disorderly conduct after spitting into the face of a passerby during a picket and then laughing. The security cameras of a nearby business caught the incident on tape.

In the 2000s, Fred Phelps Jr. was convicted of misdemeanor assault for shouting an obscene phrase at a woman stopped at a red light during a picket. He was arrested in 2004 for possession of marijuana, but no charges were pressed.

Also in 2004, Margie Phelps and her son Jacob were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct and failure to obey after disregarding a police officer's order that they were not allowed to enter a company's private property with chairs and stand on them with an upside down flag and a picket sign.

Violence against Westboro

Though the group has practiced violence in the past, they themselves have also been the victims of attacks:

• During a March 26, 1993 protest at Topeka's Vintage Restaurant, a riot broke out and eight WBC members were hospitalized for various minor injuries; WBC now pickets the restaurant every day, as well as the places of business where employees went after leaving the Vintage in an attempt to escape Westboro. In addition, the congregants hold a memorial service every year on the 26th, commemorating what they refer to as "the Vintage Massacre."
• In 1994, a woman tried to run down protestors in Topeka after one of them screamed obscenities at her while she was parked at a stop light.
• In 2003, septuagenarian WBC member Charles Hockenbarger had his face crushed in a beating after standing on a street corner holding a sign reading "THANK GOD FOR SEPT. 11". Hockenbarger was recovering from open heart surgery at the time and ignoring the usual doctor's orders for bed rest. Westboro was quick to post photos of the aftermath of the attack on its homepage, claiming that the (still unidentified) perpetrator was a homosexual and that the attack had been part of a murder conspiracy to kill Hockenbarger.
• During a protest at the 2005 presidential inauguration of George W. Bush, WBC protestors were slapped, kicked and had their signs forcefully taken by other protestors.
• There have been differing reports on actions at an October 5, 2005, picket of a Wisconsin soldier's funeral. One report was that Sheriff Todd Nehls asked Paulette Phelps to move so he could protect her. Her group called him a Nazi and refused to comply. A conflicting claim put forth by members of the WBC alleges that Sheriff Nehls punched Paulette Phelps in the face. Video of the purported incident at godhatesfags.com--which claims to show Nehls striking one of the church members-- is ambiguous, and at the point the purported attack takes place, the camera is pointed at the ground (indeed, large portions of the video are made up of shots of Westboro members' feet and the ground). In their articles covering the funeral of the soldier, local newspapers did not confirm that such an attack took place.

Claiming divine vengeance

WBC views numerous murders, accidents, natural disasters and terrorist attacks as being perpetrated by God on their behalf.

After businessman Nick Berg was executed in Iraq, WBC proclaimed that he had been killed as a sacrifice because of attacks against Fred Phelps and other WBC members.

The group also claimed that a helicopter crash in Iraq that killed 37 soldiers was caused by God to avenge WBC.

In 1995 a bomb exploded at the WBC compound, outside the home of Shirley Phelps-Roper, a daughter of Fred Phelps. Though the Topeka Police Department concluded after an investigation that the explosion was linked to a serial bomber who had been setting off firebombs around Topeka, and that the bomber had no ties to any anti-Westboro group, WBC claimed that all the other bombs set off had been a "cover" for the one at Phelps-Roper's home. In recent years, Westboro has advanced its conspiracy theory claims, stating that the bomb was part of a plot by the government to silence Westboro. Referring to the incident in a 2005 press release, the group stated:

We may be pardoned for seeing a direct correlation between the improvised explosive devices killing American kids in Iraq and the IED that nearly killed a sleeping Westboro baby August 20 1995.

Westboro now pickets the funerals of American soldiers killed with bombs, proclaiming them to have been killed and sent to Hell as punishment for the bombing of Westboro.

September 11 attacks and the space shuttle Columbia

After the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Phelps' group went to New York City to protest the rescue efforts going on there, mocking victims as they were taken from the rubble, shouting obscenities at rescue workers and demanding that those still alive be left to die. Phelps reasoned that God had caused the terrorist attacks as a punishment for tolerance of homosexuality, and that it was God's will that those who suffered in the attacks should die. Signs carried at the Ground Zero site included, "THANK GOD FOR SEPT. 11", "FDNY SIN (with a picture of stick-figures engaged in anal sex)", "NYPD FAGS (with a picture of stick-figures engaged in anal sex)", "YOUR PENTAGON IS SQUARE" and "TOWERS CRASH, GOD LAUGHS".

At the same time, Phelps also wrote several songs about the incident and recorded them with the Westboro Baptist Church Choir. The two most notable songs (which Phelps published on his own record label, named for the church) were "God Hates America" and "America the Burning," which are both sung as hymns mocking the dead and thanking God for killing those proclaimed as WBC's enemies. Additionally, in the days following the attacks, a song and subsequent music video entitled "I Like to Watch" were released by the Church of Euthanasia. The website Ogrish.com attributed the works to Fred Phelps and Westboro; Phelps' subsequent comments that he enjoyed watching re-runs of the planes striking the Twin Towers further reinforced the rumor that he was responsible for the video and song.

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 attacks.

Phelps's church has also produced flyers asserting that the seven astronauts who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster are in Hell and that they were killed first and foremost as a punishment for not using their position as astronauts to speak out against homosexuality. He also claimed that they had been killed to punish NASA and America for not speaking out against gays, God having chosen to destroy the shuttle because it was a symbol of America's technological advancement. The final reason, Phelps claimed, was because one of the astronauts was from Israel and thus was killed as a sign to Israel to outlaw homosexuality and break ties with America.

London terrorist attacks

On July 8 2005, Westboro released a statement in celebration of the 7 July 2005 terrorist attacks on the public transport system of London, which claimed 55 deaths and some 700 casualties from around the world. The statement, aside from calling Queen Elizabeth II "Queen of Fags", Tony Blair an "Anti-Christ Fag" and Cherie Blair a "bitch barrister", also proclaimed:

Thank God for the bombing of London's subway today - July 7, 2005 - wherein dozens were killed and hundreds seriously injured. Wish it was many more.

In October 2005 in a hidden camera interview with a reporter from British based Sky News, Phelps said he "can't stand those SOBs " and said that he would be arrested if he carried any of his signs on the streets there. He also remarked of the bombings:

"Oh I am so thankful that that happened. My only regret is that they didn't kill about a million of them. That's my only regret. Because England deserves that kind of punishment and this country does."

Although the Sky News interview involved a hidden camera, Westboro placed a link to it on its website.

"God Hates Canada", "God Hates Sweden", and "God Hates America"

"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. 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. Phelps nearly broke down during a sermon praising Green and declaring that he was going to go to Sweden and force every citizen to look at a picture of "that poor Gospel preacher". He declared Green a "martyr" and designed a granite monument to Green, announcing plans to erect copies of it throughout America. In response, Green called Phelps "appalling" and "extremely unpleasant", stressing that while Phelps proclaims hatred for homosexuals and condemns them to Hell, Green wishes for homosexuals to one day renounce their homosexuality and hopes for them to enter Heaven. Infuriated, Phelps declared that Green was a traitor. However, the "tribute" to Green (complete with proposed monument) remains on the Westboro website.

According to Swedish media reports from August 18 2005, the Swedish royal family is going to take legal actions against the site . ()

WBC issued a dubious claim of having picketed in Stockholm on September 5 2005, reporting their alleged protest in one of their "Epics" posted at their website. Despite claiming to have given numerous interviews in the Swedish media - and even holding a press conference - there is no evidence that anyone from WBC was ever present in Sweden.

Fred Phelps' confrontations with Scandinavian leaders date 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. This threat to deface the Finnish flag quickly prompted Finnish hackers to deface Westboro's website by replacing every page on it with the flag of Finland.

"God Hates America" was launched by Fred Phelps to promote his belief that the United States is a decadent and morally bankrupt nation, and as such, is hated by God.

For example, in December 2003, the opening lines on the website were:

Two years after God, in His providence, brings down the symbol of America's financial might, made the Pentagon square, and plunged thousands more hateful Americans into hell, you continue to ignore His messengers, and in fact spit in His face by legalizing sinful filth.

The above is a reference to the September 11, 2001 attacks, which Phelps believes were instigated by God as a punishment for the United States. On the site, Phelps repeatedly attacks homosexuality, tolerance of homosexuals, and gay rights (such as the legalisation of same-sex marriage), claiming that there has been a "fag takeover of this nation" .

The hymn "God Hates America" can be found on this web site, sung to the tune of "God Bless America":

God hates America! Home of the fags!

He abhors them, deplores them,

Day and night, all His might, all His days,

From her mountain, to her prairie

To her oceans, white with foam,

God hates America! The perverts' home!

God hates America! The perverts' home!

Following the damage and loss of life caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, an introductory page was added to the site extolling the event as an instance of God's vengeance on the United States which read in part "Pray for more dead bodies floating on the fag-semen-rancid waters of New Orleans."

Indian Ocean earthquake

On December 29 2004, shortly after the Indian Ocean earthquake, Westboro published a flyer headlined "Thank God for Tsunami and 20,000 dead Swedes!!!", calling Sweden the "land of the sodomite damned" and saying "woe to faggot Sweden". More fliers were produced shortly after, 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 had also threatened to picket Swedish survivors at various locations on the island of Phuket. Phelps stated that it was better for the child victims to be dead than to be taught that it is acceptable to be gay.

Stance on adoption by same-sex couples

On April 9 2005, Phelps Sr. preached about convicted child molester and murderer John Couey in his weekly sermon, using Couey as a counterpoint to gay adoption:

I'd sooner let John Couey, C-O-U-E-Y, who raped and buried alive little Jessica, I'd sooner let him adopt the kids, than turn them over to these fags and dykes! Is that plain enough for ya?

Hurricane Katrina

Phelps Sr. claims that Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed much of the Gulf Coast area of Mississippi and parts of New Orleans in 2005, was sent as punishment by God as "His wraith and vengeance upon America" for the bombing of WBC on 20 August 1995 and that "America became WBC's terrorist. So, God, in retaliation, became America's Terrorist". He rejoices in the hurricane, saying that America finally sees New Orleans for what it truly is: "a putrid, toxic, stinking cesspool of fag fecal matter." (See also Alternative theories regarding Hurricane Katrina).

A member of the web site Something Awful registered to prevent Phelps from possibly claiming the domain name for his own, as it was suspected that Phelps would register the hostname in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It redirects to the American Red Cross site.

Picketing of Rehnquist's funeral

On September 7 2005, the church picketed the funeral of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist with signs such as "Judge in Hell". Their claim was that Rehnquist, during his watch, allowed the "fags" to "take over America". (However, Rehnquist, it should be noted, joined Justice White in the dissenting opinion against the Court's decision in Roe v. Wade -- a ruling which legalized abortion, which Westboro opposes.)

Picketing of Fred Rogers' memorial

A memorial for noted children's television personality Fred Rogers was also picketed by members of the church. Shirley Phelps-Roper claimed in interviews that Rogers, a Presbyterian minister, had a responsibility to comment on the issue of homosexuality. Though Rogers was not known to have made any statements supporting homosexuality either, his failure to condemn it was sufficient to earn the enmity of the church.

Soldiers in Iraq

On October 29, 2005, the church put out a flyer saying "Praise the Lord for 2,010 Dead Soldiers in Iraq" and stating "We humbly pray to God to please kill many more". It should be noted that Westboro was supportive of Saddam Hussein's regime, claiming it was the only Muslim country where Christianity could be openly preached on the streets. Phelps Sr. had even made a journey to Iraq at Hussein's invitation.

Westboro does not discriminate against groups opposed to the Iraq War when it comes to its hatred: the church has also said anti-war activist and Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan is going to join her son in Hell.

In 2006 harrasment not unlike that previously directed at the Oldham's are being directed at the family of Sgt. Rickey Jones an Indiana soldier killed in Iraq. Their home has been vandalized/egged and the family has received disturbing phone calls in which the caller said: "I'm glad your son is dead."The Phelps clan would not be mentioned if they hadn't declared their intention to desecrate his funeral.

In responce to Westboro's actions against military funerals a group formed in 2005 to negate such activity.

West Virginia coal miners

On January 15, 2006, Westboro members protested the memorial of 2006 Sago Mine disaster victims . After roughly an hour of protesting, the members left the memorial. Footage of the protest, including several members dancing, was later shown on Fox News.

Other prejudices

The Westboro Baptist Church attributes membership of most religious groups, such as the Roman Catholic Church or Islam, as akin to devil worship. All non-Christian entities, non-Protestant Christian churches, as well as all Protestant Christian churches which don't strongly condemn homosexuality, are said to be sending their members to Hell.

While the Westboro Baptist Church says that racial discrimination is a sin, it and Phelps Sr. have been , including using racist imagery in its fliers and using racial epithets.

A compilation of Westboro Baptist Church's various racial and political views:

Anti-Islamic stance

In response to a Newsweek article alledging that American soldiers flushed copies of the Koran down the toilet at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Fred Phelps released a gleeful statement (pdf) ():

"So what if our guys flushed copies of the Koran down the toilet? We hope they did. They probably did. We hope they flush more. Mohammed was a demon-possessed whoremonger and pedophile who contrived a 300-page work of Satanic fiction: The Koran! Like America's own whoremonger and pedophile wangled his own hokey Book of Mormon!"

Phelps went on to give a brief literary dissection of the Koran, using nearly identical grammar and language to he and his children's (likewise identical) dissections of The Laramie Project:

"The Koran's 300 pages divided into 114 chapters is toilsome reading—a cheap, tacky, wearisome, and confused jumble of crude nonsense—whose Heaven is an endless adulterous orgy."

Anti-semitism/Anti-Judaism

Second only to WBC's anti-homosexual picketing is their anti-Jewish stance.

Phelps refers to the Holocaust as "minuscule" and led a protest at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. in 1996, proclaiming:

Whatever righteous cause the Jewish victims of the 1930s-40s Nazi Holocaust had.. has been drowned in sodomite semen. American taxpayers are financing this unholy monument to Jewish mendacity and greed and to filthy fag lust. Homosexuals and Jews dominated Nazi Germany..The Jews now wander the earth despised, smitten with moral and spiritual blindness by a divine judicial stroke..And god has smitten Jews with a certain unique madness..Jews, thus perverted, out of all proportion to their numbers energize the militant sodomite agenda..Jews are the real Nazis.

Also in 1996, Phelps began a campaign called "Topeka's Baptist Holocaust", whereby he attempted to draw attention to attacks perpetuated against WBC picketers, saying that they were not random but organized attacks orchestrated by Jews and homosexuals. Phelps announced, "Jews killed Christ", and:

Fag Jew Nazis are worse than ordinary Nazis. They've had more experience. The First Holocaust was a Jewish Holocaust against Christians. The latest Holocaust is by Topeka Jews against Westboro Baptist Church.

In another statement, he said:

Topeka Jews today stir up Kansas tyrants in persecuting Westboro Baptists. They whine about the Nazi Holocaust, while they perpetrate the Topeka Holocaust.

WBC was present at a 2002 Holocaust memorial dedication in Topeka, proclaiming "God Hates Reform Judaism". ()

During the 2004 United States presidential election, Phelps campaigned against United States Senator John Kerry, claiming that his affiliation with Judaism made him unfit to run the country, and on his webpage gave a lengthy recitation of Kerry's family tree, naming all of his Jewish ancestors.

A sampling of WBC's fliers regarding Judaism can be found .

Anti-Catholicism

Westboro 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; Westboro refers to priests as "vampires" and "Draculas," and talks of Catholic priests sucking semen out of children's genitals like vampires suck blood from their victims. Phelps has also reproduced an alleged "Diary of Another Fag Catholic Priest" on Westboro's homepage 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". About Catholics, he says:

They're mean. Mean as Hell. Headed for Hell. The meanest, most hateful people on Earth.

The day after the death of Pope John Paul II, Phelps held a service to "celebrate his entrance into Hell", during which he boasted, "You don't think he split Hell wide open? We're the only ones telling the truth about that son of a bitch!" That evening he posted a flier on his webpage showing a doctored photo of a screaming John Paul II with horns coming out of his forehead, with the caption:

Deal with it, you idolatrous morons! The pope is in Hell. Westboro Baptist Church members are competent expert witnesses, having picketed hundreds of Catholic churches in all fifty states over the past fourteen years. We will bear witness on Judgment Day: Catholics are the meanest, most violent people on Earth, and their churches are filled with filthy fag priests. On John Paul II's watch, the Catholic Church became the CHURCH OF THE HOLY PEDOPHILES and sodomite feces and semen replaced bread and wine.

Westboro operates three separate websites related to this issue, though two are not yet operational (see below).

Responses

Responses include the creation of an opposing website, a pro-gay rights website, launched by Kris Haight on March 1 1999. The site focuses on the debate surrounding religion and homosexuality and especially homosexuality and Christianity.

On August 18 1999, an unidentified hacker transferred ownership of the domain www.godhatesfags.com to Kris Haight. Apparently, this was done by forging an email message from Phelps. Haight promptly redirected all traffic to godlovesfags.com. After much media attention, Phelps threatened to sue and the domain name was returned on August 21.

Counter protests are generally organized to provide an opposing viewpoint at sites that Westboro pickets. In some cases counter protestors have lined up and turned their backs on the Westboro pickets or encircled them in a ring, explaining that they want to symbolically shield the community from the hate. This has become frequent with Westboro's picketing of the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq; veterans' associations and biker groups such as the Patriot Guard have led the counter protests in recent months.

In response to the protests conducted by Westboro members at Indiana funerals, a bill was introduced in the Indiana General Assembly that would make it a felony to protest within 500 feet of a funeral. The bill provides penalties of up to three years in prison in addition to a $10,000 fine for those found to be in violation of the law. On January 11, 2006 the bill unanimously (11-0) passed a committee vote . Several states have adopted similar legislation, such as South Dakota. Some have been critical of these laws, saying that they could prevent other protests as well, and may possibly violate the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Criticism

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes the Westboro Baptist Church as "virulently homophobic", whose anti-gay rhetoric they say is often a cover for anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an anti-hate group, has added the Westboro Baptist Church to its list of hate groups. Many mainstream conservative and fundamentalist Christians (including those who oppose homosexuality, such as Jerry Falwell), have denounced Phelps' remarks as hateful and un-Christian. Falwell is often credited with referring to Phelps as "a first-class nut".

Opposition to Westboro's theology

Mainstream Calvinist churches have claimed that Westboro's agenda, especially its welcoming of murders and its message of hate, is at variance with Calvinism.

Westboro's belief that opposition to its practices constitutes blasphemy against God is similar in some aspects to Benny Hinn, who has spoken curses against his opponents, and once claimed that God would destroy all homosexuals in America. However, Hinn does not support Phelps Sr., nor has Hinn taught anything remotely similar to Westboro's theology.

Westboro has been labeled as a cult by some Christian ministries and by such nonreligious anti-cult personalities such as Rick Ross. Generally, within Christian circles an organization is labeled a cult if it either departs from traditional Christian doctrine and/or attempts to exert an excessive amount of control over its members by dictating how the members can and cannot act, under threat of expulsion.

Further, only a handful of Christian groups hold to Westboro's view that homosexuals are permanently reprobate, unable to repent or obtain salvation. The vast majority of Christian groups who would otherwise agree with Phelps that homosexuality is sin, do not teach that homosexuality is the unpardonable sin. Instead, the consensus among these groups is that a homosexual can repent and be saved, and can renounce their lifestyle, as can any other sinner.

Also, most Christian groups disagree that Christians are exempt from governmental laws, with the possible exception of any law that would prohibit Christians from sharing their faith. However, in such a case, these groups advise using the legal system to address their grievances; physical violence is never advocated even when counter-protests are conducted.

Parodies

The God Hates Fags website has achieved sufficient notoriety to be parodied with at least five independent domain names:

• : a parody protesting hand puppets, specifically the Muppets (features a spoof counter showing the time Jim Henson has "been in Hell")
• : parody protesting the eating of figs, claiming that they are "cursed by God" (based on a Biblical passage in which Jesus smites a fig tree)
• : a parody protesting the teaching of a round earth, believing that "Biblical evidence" proves it is flat
• : a parody protesting the eating of shrimp and similar sea creatures, based on Old Testament provisions that such animals were unclean
• : This is a mockery of the WBC founder.
• : A parody of small-minded bigotry, this site's writers attack Catholics, Jews, Minorities, and anyone else they can think of, while extoling guns, conservatism and selling tee-shirts, coffee cups and bumper stickers. The LBC slogan: "Where the worthwhile worship - Unsaved unwelcome. As Jesus commanded."

See also

• Fred Phelps
• Members of Westboro Baptist Church

WBC Websites

• (not yet operational)
• (not yet operational)
• (not yet operational)
• (links to an advertisement for "Hatemongers", Steve Drain's pro-Fred Phelps Sr. documentary)

Further reading

In 2000, Topeka filmmaker Steve Drain, along with his family, joined the group after he made a movie about Phelps called "Fred: The Movie," which was later re-edited and re-released as a director's cut entitled "Hatemongers." The neutrality of the movie is disputed: it apparently takes great pains to paint Phelps in a positive light and contains extended, sympathetic interviews with many of his children, while the viewpoints of those opposed to Westboro are limited to three-to-four second soundbites. On his website, Drain calls Phelps "a champion of the First Amendment, spending over fifty years as a Gospel preacher and thirty as a civil rights attorney" and "perhaps the most misunderstood man in the world."

References

1.     , Active U.S. Hate Groups in 2004, Kansas
2.   Mars Hill Forum #70, Casper Open Bible Church, Casper, Wyoming, October 13, 2002
3.            
4.   , Bob Allen, Ethics Daily, September 1, 2005
5.   , May 8, 2005
6.  
7.   , November 18, 2005 (PDF)
8.   , January 1, 2005 (PDF)
9.   (note the length of the sermon files)
10.     , Anti-Defamation League, September 2000
11.  
12.   , February 5, 2001
13.     , Sky News, October 25, 2005
14.  
15.   , May 2, 2005
16.         , Jon Michael Bell, et al.
17.     , June 21, 2005
18.  
19.   , October 18, 2005
20.  
21.   , Roger Myers, The Topeka Capital-Journal, May 24, 1997
22.   , Tim Hrenchir and Cait Purinton, The Topeka Capital-Journal, May 17, 2004
23.  
24.    
25.   , July 7, 2005
26.   (in Swedish)
27.   , September 5, 2005
28.  
29.   , December 29, 2004
30.  
31.   , Michael Rodgers, Liberty Post
32.  
33.   , August 18, 2005
34.  
35.  
36.  
37.   , Steve Drain

Westboro Baptist Church