Behind their hate, a constitutional debate

Josh Belzman Writer and producer • Profile • E-mail

For a congregation that is mostly reviled, Westboro Baptist Church claims to have two major allies: God and the Constitution.

Proclaiming “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers,” the small band of evangelicals from Topeka, Kan., has ignited a firestorm by spreading its gospel of damnation at the funerals of AIDS victims and slain soldiers.

Its members may even picket the funeral of Heath Ledger, a straight actor who played a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain."

The church calls its protests free speech. Grieving families and many lawmakers call them an affront to decency, and have sought new laws aimed at keeping protesters away from funerals.

Westboro has challenged such efforts before, forcing changes to Kansas laws and collecting more than $200,000 in legal fees.

The courts are familiar territory for the church and its leader.

Long before the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr. and his "old-school” ministry hit the streets, he was championing the cause of blacks as a civil rights attorney.

“I felt some providential call on the matter,” Phelps, 76, said of his decision to become a lawyer shortly after founding Westboro in 1955. The law “was an adjunct to my ministry.”

For more than three decades Phelps’ legal prowess earned him acclaim and derision. While his career ended in disgrace, his zeal for the courtroom rubbed off: Eleven of Phelps’ 13 children are lawyers and now do the church's bidding in court.

A message of hate
Phelps’ anti-gay protests began in earnest in the early 1990s after he was disbarred amid a drawn-out fight with state investigators and federal judges. His group took to the streets and the Internet, claiming gays were taking over the country.

Westboro gained national notoriety at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who died after two men lured him from a bar, beat him and tied him to a fence outside Laramie, Wyo., in October 1998. Phelps' followers showed up with signs that read "God hates fags" and said Shepard was in hell.

The church’s 75 members, most of whom are related to Phelps, seize upon disasters and calamities, including roadside bombs in Iraq, the attacks of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the recent mining deaths in West Virginia, as God’s punishment for a country that tolerates gays.

“God promised dire outpourings of very painful wrath, and there’s nothing more painful than killing one of your children and that’s what’s going on in Iraq,” Phelps said. “That’s what we’re preaching and the forum of choice to deliver such a message, obviously, is the funeral of the kid that’s been blown to smithereens."

Widespread backlash
While many of Westboro’s early protests were ignored, the group’s protests at military funerals have caused outrage.

“If they want to demonstrate their disagreement with the war, then do it where it makes sense — in Washington, D.C., outside the Capitol or White House,” said Jerry Newberry, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “But the Phelps family isn’t even protesting the fact that we’re at war. Their whole thing is based on some lunatic, pathological hatred for homosexuals. They have no shame.”

A group of motorcyclists calling themselves the Patriot Guard Riders has begun attending military funerals to shield families from Westboro members.

Orlin Wagner / AP file The Rev. Fred Phelps prepares to protest outside the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka in February.

Nearly 30 states have taken up laws restricting graveside demonstrations. Kentucky is the latest, adopting a measure in late March that bars protests within 300 feet of a funeral from an hour before until an hour after the ceremony. Similar measures have passed in Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Kansas may stiffen its existing funeral picketing law. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., have introduced federal legislation that would make it a felony to picket within 500 feet of a funeral.

Phelps revels in his critics’ anger and considers it a sign that he is doing God’s work. He isn’t out to save anyone, saying, “The time for repentance is over.”

“I’m Noah … and my only duty is to deliver with great fidelity an unambiguous message from God Almighty without any timidity,” Phelps said from his home in Topeka. “That’s my job, and it’s a matter of supreme irrelevance what people do with it.”

Constitutional fight
Phelps believes the new laws are unconstitutional, but said his group will abide by them and wait for Congress to act before challenging them in court.

Newberry backs the measures and thinks they will stand up in court, since similar limits on abortion protests have passed constitutional muster.

“Most of the legislation that I’ve seen has been very carefully crafted not to ban free speech,” he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union isn’t so sure. 

“We’re paying close attention because of the First Amendment implications and [we] may be prepared to criticize legislation that restricts people’s lawful right to express ideas, as distasteful as they may be,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s national legislative office.

Fredrickson said the ACLU is concerned that new anti-picketing laws may be selectively enforced or needlessly ban demonstrations in areas that have traditionally been protected.

Phelps’ daughter and church attorney Shirley Phelps-Roper says Westboro doesn’t want or expect the ACLU’s help.

“You know that they don’t have any love lost for us,” she said. “It puts them in quite a quandary. The champions of our freedom are sitting around going, ‘Oh man, we hate (the Phelpses).’”

Westboro may not need help staging a legal fight.

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