Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church (7 page)

Pastor Phelps was holding up two signs. The first one proclaimed GOD

HATES AMERICA--a direct jab at Billy Graham's favorite blessing, "God Bless America." The Westboro Baptist Church knew that God hated America because it was a fag-enabling country--so the pastor's other sign read GOD

HATES FAGS. Activist movements that supported and mainstreamed gay rights were one reason for our recent accelerated descent into hell. The other was the cheapening of our religious convictions, as evidenced by these kinds of megapreachers and false prophets.

As Pastor Phelps barked out his message, he'd take pauses to chuckle and smile approvingly at Shirley and her daughter, Megan, who were imitating his style and shouting the same message with enthusiasm equal to his own.

Shirley, Dad's friend and the fifth of the pastor's thirteen children, was so engaged in picketing, she barely had time to come over to greet Dad and meet me.

When she did make her way to us, she introduced me to Megan. The first thing I noticed about Megan was how pretty and bubbly she was. I was completely drawn in by her enthusiasm, and we bonded immediately. She was as friendly as anybody I had ever met, and she made me feel like an insider from our first embrace. On top of that, she was mature and intelligent, and she seemed more interesting than my old friends, with a deep knowledge about events in the world and issues that were being debated in the news, such as phony pastors and homosexual rights. I could envision us being friends.

I didn't feel that any of the Phelps girls were judging me harshly. Dad had told me on the trip up that they all were ordinary folks with a reasonable message. "These people are going out on their dime and time to protest something they think is important. They don't want people to be lied to." He said they were making it their life's work to spread God's truth: either obey or pay in hell.

When my father and I first mingled with the group, I only wanted to observe the picket or assist my dad with his filming. His still-unfinished documentary was no longer an exposé of the church's fanaticism, now that he had become totally indoctrinated. I was allowed to put the microphone on Fred Phelps, which was quite thrilling for me since he was a recognizable celebrity. Although I started out as mostly a bystander, over the course of the day, I began to feel a little more self-assured and got into the swing of things.

I yelled along with everyone else, imitating Megan word for word when I wasn't exactly sure what I was expected to say. I held up a sign that read BILLY IN HELL; it had a photograph of Billy Graham's head with a pink, upside-down triangle on it. People were constantly streaming by and yelling biblical quotes back at us, things like "God hates those who hate" or "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Some of them stood in circles praying for us. I thought it was ironic that people would tell us not to judge them and then immediately judge us in return. My pet peeve had always been hypocrisy, especially in religion.

On the drive home, I told Dad how much fun the day had been. I hadn't seen anything wrong with what the church was trying to say. I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about their message and why they were saying it. Dad explained to me they were just trying to help people understand God's message. I could tell he was pleased that I had taken such a liking to his people and their cause. I was glad that my father was appreciating me, not thinking that I was worthless and useless. He said he would be sure to include me in the next picket event.

Megan and I wrote letters back and forth until the next protest we attended, which was in Manhattan two months later. Our whole family made the trip to New York. I had never been there before, and like many teens, I was excited to be going to an MTV event. The church was staging a demonstration outside the MTV offices on West Fifty-Fifth Street and Seventh Avenue, protesting the broadcasting of
Anatomy of a Hate Crime,
a made-for-TV

docudrama about Matthew Shepard.

Shepard's death was the perfect hot-button issue to demonstrate the church's position against homosexuality. The brutality against Shepard had become so well known that he had become the poster child for

antihomophobia groups around the nation and the world. However, for the WBC, he was the paradigm of God's hell on earth for fags, and in fact his funeral in Casper, Wyoming, on October 17, 1998, a little more than two years earlier, had put the Westboro Baptist Church on the map. Before the funeral, most of the nation knew nothing about the church. Its antigay protests took place in the Topeka area and made only the regional newspapers and local evening news shows. But because so many camera crews were covering the funeral, Pastor Phelps got the attention of the national and international media like never before. The news footage showed the pastor holding two provocative signs: NO TEARS FOR

QUEERS and FAG MATT IN HELL.

The pamphlet the pastor had printed for distribution read "It is too late to rescue Matthew Shepard from the life of sin and shame into which he was lured by the perverted, depraved, and decadent American society into which he was born. All who say, 'It's okay to be gay,' have the blood of Matthew Shepard on their hands." The WBC was on to something--the bigger and sadder the story, the better the opportunity to spread the Word of God, that the world was doomed because of tolerance for homosexuality. Because the passersby reacted so violently toward the picketers, the pastor felt that the church did have something important to say--otherwise, the audience wouldn't be that angry.

After Matt's funeral, the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the WBC a hate group. The pastor disagreed that we fit the definition, because the hatred was from God, not a personal dislike or an advocacy of violence toward others. However, he seemed to revel in the new tag, because he considered hate to be one of God's greatest attributes. He still organized a picket at the SPLC's headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama. The vocal and colorful pastor soon became almost as well-known as Matthew Shepard himself.

New York was extremely cold the January day of the MTV picket, but at least the deep freeze of the previous three weeks was over. Everybody in the city--except us--seemed so happy that it was forty degrees outside instead of zero, but temperature being relative, it was still really cold to me.

Although Mom had made the trip, she didn't want to picket, so she took Taylor shopping while I headed over with Dad. My father was filming again, still getting more raw footage for his documentary, even though he told me he wished he could just be picketing. Megan, Shirley, and a man from the congregation I hadn't seen before were at the picket site, very happy to see us and ready to start. Shirley distributed the signs. I proudly held a couple of GOD HATES FAGS placards whose flip side proclaimed FAGS ARE

BEASTS. Shirley and Megan had MATT IN HELL and NO TEARS FOR

QUEERS/FAG DIES, GOD LAUGHS combinations. Every once in a while, Dad would put down his camera and hold up a sign like NO FAGS IN

HEAVEN from our pile of spares.

Just as in Jacksonville, we weren't there long before we started to provoke angry opposition. People walking by screamed at us that we, not Matt Shepard, were going to hell. Everybody seemed to think that Matt had been killed because of his sexual orientation. But the church didn't see it that way.

Its standpoint was that people didn't get beaten up just because they were gay and that Matthew's murder was not a hate crime; rather, it was exactly what God had in mind for homosexual sinners. I now agreed with what the church members were saying and understood their logic. I thought that the people who were getting all upset with us were just ignorant.

I felt really confident on those midtown streets. I didn't feel the need to hang close to my father that day. If there was something I needed, I'd ask him, but for the most part, he held the camera and recorded the protest, and I was on my own. He'd walk around filming one of the four of us or some of the people who were hurling insults at us. I felt proud of how he played such an important role and handled himself so calmly.

About halfway through the three hours of our demonstration, Mom and Taylor came by to bring us something warm to drink. Mom was really nervous; I am not sure if it was because she was uncomfortable with the fact that people, many of them my age, were walking by and yelling violent things at us, or because of some of the messages on the signs. She still didn't like the idea that anyone besides God knew who was in hell and who wasn't. After just a few minutes, she took Taylor's hand and quickly pulled her off to do something else.

Taylor had wanted to picket. At ten years old, she probably didn't understand what the protest was really about, but she wanted to be part of it. There was always a bit of competitiveness between my younger sister and me, but it didn't usually get in the way of how much we cherished each other. I sometimes thought she was a little jealous of me because my father and I were a lot alike, both curious and outspoken. Before our crisis, I had liked grilling him with questions and getting his opinion on my school papers. We had fallen away, but thankfully, we were beginning to rebuild our close relationship. We'd had a lot in common before, like sports and music, and now we were sharing his church. Taylor was struggling to make sure Dad noticed her, too. But if Dad seemed to dote on me, my mother had a soft spot for Taylor. She had almost lost her to cancer, which no doubt made her hyperprotective. Plus, my sister was more soft-spoken and obedient than I was--of course, she was only ten.

At three o'clock, we packed up our signs and headed for the hotel. It had only been my second picket, but I could tell already that the Westboro Baptist Church was a community that I wanted to be a part of. There was something to it. We moved people to ask us a lot of questions, even if they screamed those questions at us. This meant we had some access to knowledge that they didn't. Just because picketing and provoking strangers was uncomfortable didn't mean we shouldn't do it. The whole three hours had been an intellectually stimulating experience for me. Whether or not I had it right, I hadn't been afraid. The group's seeming integrity was powerful, and they were really getting to the root of things, opening the eyes of their detractors to something profound, taking them to a new level of truth.

I arrived at the hotel exhilarated. My stereotype of a protester had always been an angry person saying something over and over, chanting and shaking a sign in somebody's face. In our group, we spoke calmly to people who were interested in engaging with us and asking questions. We had good points, substantive discussions, and strong arguments. I liked the high, happy energy on the picket line. None of the participants was mad or mean like I had thought they would be.

I liked the change in my dad from being a part of this church, too. His affiliation with them seemed to have brought out his humility. He'd so often been a jerk, especially to my mom. He always had to be the funny guy at the party, no matter at whose expense. Now he was less pretentious and didn't seem concerned with others' opinions of him; instead, he wanted to investigate something spiritual and do so with integrity. Dad was going in a good direction, and I felt hope for our entire family. I couldn't anticipate anything bad happening with this new religion guiding our lives.

Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to
the church daily such as should be saved.

--Acts 2:47

Back in Florida, my father and I were managing to hold the peace. Dad was really focusing on getting
Hatemongers
ready for submission to the festivals.

He'd retained the original title, believing it was provocative and would stir interest, but he'd added the subtitle
The True Story about Fred Phelps and
the Westboro Baptist Church
. He wrote his own sound track for the movie, but I helped him with editing after he trained me on the software and put me to work.

I still wasn't allowed to see any of my Bradenton friends at my house or any of theirs. Despite how empowered I had felt at the protests, I still really missed hanging out with them and getting to be a teenager. I was on my best behavior, trying to get ungrounded, but Dad was not budging. Instead, I had to resort to doing everything with my sister. Taylor was still in public school and often brought her friends home in the afternoons. I'd hang out with them just for the sake of having company, even though they were five years younger. On weekends, Dad let me go to the beach, as long as I was with Taylor. When I complained that I never got to see my friends, he'd encourage me to keep up my correspondence with Megan and the other girls in Topeka, anticipating we'd be moving there sometime soon. They were all I had for contemporaries, even if they lived far away, and when I wrote any of them a letter, I'd get one back about a week later. And of course, our pen-pal relationship earned me Dad's approval, which was such a huge relief.

One day in March, my father got off his daily phone call with Shirley with great news. A very small house was coming available on "the block," the term church members used to refer to the homes surrounding the church building in Topeka. Shirley told him it was ours to rent if we wanted to move to Kansas.

When Dad mentioned a potential move to me, I thought about it seriously for a couple of days before I decided that I loved the idea. I was sick and tired of living in isolation in Florida, and I really liked Megan and the other girls, so I knew I already had a built-in community of friends in Topeka. I had already decided that Dad's new religion wasn't bad at all, and I liked that it had a grand purpose. He and I could spread the church's message together at pickets and finally be a team again.

Mom was not nearly as enthusiastic. Dad was in their bedroom reading scripture when she went to talk to him about it. "If you think we are moving to Topeka, you are out of your f----ing mind," she said, blocking the doorway.

My mother was not one to swear. She used profanity only if she was really upset about something. We didn't have the resources to keep moving, she argued. The student loan payments were dragging down everything, and we were relying solely on one income in the house.