Phelps dropped out of Bob Jones College in 1948. Phelps apparently never spoke to his family members again, and returned all of their letters, birthday cards, and Christmas gifts for his children, unopened. A combination of Phelps's refusal of the West Point appointment (which his father had worked hard to obtain), his abandonment of his father's beloved Methodist faith, and his father's remarriage to a divorcee (Phelps would later become an outspoken critic of divorcees) precipitated a lifelong estrangement from his father and stepmother-and by some accounts, from his sister as well. In September 1947, at the age of 17, he was ordained a Southern Baptist minister and moved to Cleveland, Tennessee, to attend Bob Jones College (now Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina). After graduating from high school he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point but after attending a tent revival meeting, decided to pursue a religious calling instead. He graduated high school at 16 years old, ranking sixth in his graduating class of 213 students, and was the class orator at his commencement. He also was a member of Phi Kappa, a high school social fraternity, president of the Young Peoples Department of Central United Methodist Church and was honored as the best drilled member of the Mississippi Junior State Guard, a unit similar to the Reserve Officer Training Corps. įred distinguished himself scholastically and was an Eagle Scout. Her aunt, Irene Jordan, helped care for Fred and his younger sister Martha Jean until December 1944, when the elder Phelps married Olive Briggs, a 39-year-old divorcee. In 1935, Catherine Phelps died of esophageal cancer at the age of 28. His father was a railroad policeman for the Columbus and Greenville Railway and a devout Methodist his mother was a homemaker.
įred Waldron Phelps was born on November 13, 1929, in Meridian, Mississippi, the elder of two children of Catherine Idalette (née Johnston) and Fred Wade Phelps.
It continues to conduct regular demonstrations outside movie theaters, universities, government buildings, and other facilities in Topeka and elsewhere, and is still characterized as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Īlthough Phelps died in 2014, the Westboro Baptist Church remains in operation. Gay rights supporters denounced him as a producer of anti-gay propaganda and violence-inspiring hate speech, and even Christians from fundamentalist denominations distanced themselves from him. Laws enacted at both the federal and state levels for the specific purpose of curtailing his disruptive activities were limited in their effectiveness due to the Constitutional protections afforded to Phelps under the First Amendment. Supreme Court-and near-universal opposition and contempt from other religious groups and the general public. He continued doing so in the face of numerous legal challenges-some of which reached the U.S. In addition to funerals, Phelps and his followers-mostly his own immediate family members-picketed gay pride gatherings, high-profile political events, university commencement ceremonies, live performances of The Laramie Project, and functions sponsored by mainstream Christian groups with which he had no affiliation, arguing it was their sacred duty to warn others of God's anger. Its signature slogan, "God Hates Fags", remains the name of the group's principal website. The Westboro Baptist Church, a Topeka, Kansas-based independent fundamentalist ministry that Phelps founded in 1955, has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America". for having "bankrupt values" and tolerating homosexuality. (November 13, 1929 – March 19, 2014) was an American minister and disbarred attorney who served as pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church and became known for his homophobic views and protests near the funerals of gay people, military veterans, and disaster victims who he believed were killed as a result of God punishing the U.S.