Huffington Post Online interviewed Nate Phelps, one of the many offspring of Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist Church. He left the church, along with three other siblings who are estranged from their father. Nate currently identifies himself as an atheist and is the Executive Director of the Centre for Inquiry Canada, a secular organization that educates and advocates for reason and science. He is also on the board of directors of Recovering from Religion.
While he disagrees strongly with his father's interpretation of the Bible, he defends his family's sincerity against accusations that they are just being provocative and don't believe what they're saying. He says he is convinced that they really do believe what they preach. Then he adds that character is another thing. He made reference to his father having been abusive to the children when they were growing up, and this has to come into as assessment, he says.
Nate comes across as a well-educated, well-spoken man. This fits with what friends I know in Topeka say: that the Phelps sons and daughters are very bright and well educated, many of them lawyers. This comes from people who have taught them in school. One of the daughters, a lawyer, successfully defended the church all the way to the Supreme Court and won the lawsuit that had been brought against them for protesting at the funeral of soldier killed in Iraq.
It's a strange family. I have trouble seeing how such bigotry can co-exist with high intelligence and good education. One explanation would be the kind of mind-control that sometimes comes from an abusive relationship, especially of children early in life. They may grow up not daring to think for themselves or to oppose anything put forth by the abuser -- unless they escape, as several of them have done.
Preaching God's hatred at funerals of innocents is not simply bigotry -- it's just plain cruel.
Ralph
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