CHAPTER EIGHT

"Over the Wall at Westboro"

Listening to Fred Jr. pretend he doesn't remember a girl named Debbie Valgos is an eerie experience. It's as if one were listening to a teenager deny he borrowed the car while his parents were gone. "They're all still children," observes Mark. "Still trying to please their father because they're afraid of him." What are they afraid of?

"They've been conditioned all their lives to cringe at his anger or disapproval. Even now, with families of their own, they'll conform. In fact, a lot of what your article reveals about my siblings that my dad didn't know-my sisters taking lovers, the details of Debbie and Fred, and Jonathon stealing on candy sales-my brothers and sisters are going to panic at that. Even today, they're still frightened of his judgements."

Research indicates that three out of four children in criminally abusive families will be unable to surmount their experience. As adults, they will rationalize their past and will accept abusive behavior as the norm in both the outside world and their personal lives. As adults, they will rationalize their past and will accept abusive behavior as the norm in both the outside world and their personal lives.

It is instructive that nine of the 13 Phelps children, almost exactly the predicted ratio, continue to embrace the pastor's abusive world and ways. But this chapter is not about the ones who tried to climb their father's barrier and slipped back. It's about two who made it over the wall at Westboro; who went on to lives that are beacons of hope to others who have survived abusive families.

Mark Phelps might be his father's pointman today but for a pretty 13 year-old named Luava Sundgren. In May of 1971, a few months after Fred and Debbie had been dragged back from their aborted elopement, Fred and Mark met Debbie at the skating rink. His brother and Debbie paired off, and Mark remembers he was rolling along alone on his rented skates, wishing for his hundred dollar pros his brother had sold, when suddenly a petite girl, slim and shapely, with long dark hair hanging halfway down her back sailed by, fixed her beautiful blue eyes on him, and smiled. "You're a good skater," she said. And she pulled Mark's heart right off his sleeve. He was only 16, and she, 13, but for Mark the search for his life's mate was over. Only two months after rescuing his eldest for the moment from the charms of the 'whore-extraordinaire', the Pastor Phelps found another wily ally of the serpent threatening his second son. Except this girl was no fragile psyche, vulnerable and clueless, as Debbie Valgos would be. Raised Catholic, Debbie had no criteria by which to identify Protestant heresies, and, coming from a broken home, she had no expectations of esteem or consideration from the outside world. Luava Sundgren came from a conservative Lutheran family firmly grounded in unconditional love. "Even as a young teenager," says Mark, "my wife had high self-esteem and a very clear idea of right from wrong. Her parents were as firm about their god of love and their love for her as my father was about his hateful god and his hate for all." The pastor had met his match. This girl, though slight and shy, was not going to accept the pastor's interpretation of the Bible as his personal myth; nor would she take to being called a 'whore'. But, at first, things went well between the two.

A few weeks after the teenage couple had met to skate again and Mark had been calling her secretly by phone, Luava came to church. It was on that Sunday in early June that Debbie first came as well. Things went better for Luava because the pastor believed her long hair showed her subjection to God and man. And her naturally shy and quiet way belied the stout heart within her.

If his boys had to have mates, here was a good example of the kind of girl Fred Phelps wanted to see joining his church. Not the sassy, rebellious, Catholic, blonde sex-rocket with the page boy cut Fred Jr. had brought home. In high school, the disfavor of their family name, combined with the pastor's refusal to allow his children any participation in extracurricular activities, assured the Phelps kids were the pariahs of Topeka West. Across town under the gothic vaults of Topeka High, Luava was quite the opposite. She had many friends and became one of the school's cheerleaders. It was a mystery to everyone why she insisted on dating a member of the Addams family over on 12th Street. Luava remembers the curious questions and the biting comments she got.

So why did she? She laughs: "At first? Because he was a good skater, and he was cute-but remember, I was only 13. That's what 13 year-olds notice. Later, it's not so important if they skate or not-" she laughs again. "Seriously though, he had so much energy and he was very smart and he was really sweet to me. What chance did I have? Even my dad told me I wouldn't find a better one!" Because she was just 13, Luava's parents at first would only allow Mark to visit her at their home. He would sneak out whenever he could, or drop by while on candy sales. After a year and a half, her father agreed to let them date. He even offered to give Mark enough for dinner and a movie out. (Luava had been attending services every Sunday at the pastor's lonely keep, and she had invited her parents several times-enough for her dad to feel sorry for Mark.) The Pastor Phelps knew nothing about Mark's home courting advantage, nor the teenager's plans to date. Mark refused Mr. Sundgren's offer to pay for their date and instead found a weekend job as a busboy in a steakhouse. That lasted one shift. His father found out about Mark's endeavor to expand his independence and promptly beat him. After, he forced Mark to quit the job and forbade him to take another. As was shown in Chapter Five, it wasn't his son's study hours the pastor was concerned about; rather, any time spent working elsewhere was time one could be working for 'The Place'.

So, Mark had to shave a dollar here and there off his candy sales and summer yard work to court Luava. When his dad shut himself in the master bedroom for days, eating and watching television, Mark would sneak the car for a few hours and take Luava to a movie or dinner at a fast food restaurant. Once, they were in the Taco-Tico at 15th and Lane around 9 p.m. when the place was robbed. Two men ski masks came in, and the young teenagers ducked under the table. "After the hold-up," says Mark, with Luava laughing in the background, "we ran out too. We didn't want our names involved as witnesses because my dad would have heard about it and the jig would have been up-my secret life of dating."

Luava is still laughing. "Trouble was, after we hit the sidewalk running, only then did it occur to us everyone would think we were the ones who'd just robbed Taco-Tico." Despite Luava's quiet demeanor and biblical mane, Mark soon realized she was not plugged in to the world according to Fred.

For example, one day after Debbie had died, Mark, Nate, and Jonathon were out in the car selling candy. After his older brother's habit, Mark had brought Luava along with them, and they sat and smooched while the two younger boys worked in the neighborhood. When Nate came back to report scant sales for that day, Mark gave the command by reflex: "Chin- chin!" And Nate put his chin on the back of the front seat.

With Luava sitting beside him, Mark punched his little brother painfully in the face. In equal reflex, one from another moral world, Luava immediately slapped her boyfriend hard enough to bring stars. "Why did you..." he asked in stunned bewilderment.

"Why did you do that?" she demanded. Soon the esteem Mark had for this petite firecracker-five-two, eyes of blue, and with a fist like his father-caused him to begin opening his heart to her radically different view of human relationships. For several years before he met Luava, Mark had been his father's assistant master-at-arms: when there was a whipping due one of his siblings, sometimes the pastor would order Mark to do it. "At first I thought it was a great idea," says Nate, who received most of his elder brother's ministrations, "because he didn't have my father's violent spirit when he swung the mattock. However, that was short-lived. After a few less than satisfactory beatings-from my father's viewpoint-he threatened to beat Mark instead. Suffice it to say that afterwards I couldn't tell the difference between one of my dad's and one of my brother's beatings-except maybe in their angle of attack." "My dad would tell me to do it," agrees Mark, "and then he'd go upstairs and yell down to us in the church: 'If I don't hear it up here, it's you who'll get the beating!'" Now, however, confused by his new feelings for this remarkable girl, Mark began to slam the mattock onto the pew cushions instead. "It sounded exactly the same as it did when I hot Nate," he recalls, with what must be a smile at his end of the line. "And Nate would just howl in pain every time I hit the pew. It worked perfectly. "But it wasn't until Luava that it would have ever occurred to me to do that. I've been told children from abusive homes never develop empathy.

Boy, that was us. It was survival...period. Save yourself. "Remember how I said I felt when Mom used to drive off with everyone in the car, and Nate would get left behind, running alongside my window, begging not to be left alone with my dad? I literally could not feel for him. I didn't even know how to consider what he might be going through. I was just glad I was getting out, and that was all that mattered.

"But, after I'd been around Luava, what was going on inside other people suddenly started to matter. I guess you could say she kissed me and changed me from the frightened little frog my father had made me..." They laugh. "But after I fell in love with her, it made me want to care about others."

Little wonder Mark's wife is Nate's favorite sister-in-law still today. Though Luava refused to join the pastor's church, she continued to attend Sunday services there for nearly two years. "I knew if I didn't, Mark's father would make it even harder, if not impossible for me to see him," she says.

"During that time, I learned things about Fred Sr. I didn't like." Such as? "That God hates. It seemed to me he was putting his own words in God's mouth. I mean, Mark's father was a pretty disturbed guy. I could see that and I was only 15. It's just sad he didn't have the self- knowledge to leave religion out of it and get some help. "Also I didn't like his attitude toward family. His belief in beating children and that women were servants to men. As a future wife and mother, that left me little motivation to join his claustrophobic community." Toward the end of Luava's two-year ceasefire with the pale-hearted pastor, she arrived for services early one Sunday-too early. Kathy Phelps was getting beaten with a mattock upstairs. In shock, Mark's girl listened to his sister's screams of pain and sobbing pleas for the good minister to stop. He didn't. Luava turned on her heel and walked out. Shirley Phelps, who always wept hysterically whenever her father went into his whipping mode, ran after Luava. At the door she grabbed her arm.

"Please...please...," she sobbed. "He doesn't mean it...he doesn't know what he's doing..." Mark, who was there, remembers Luava "stopped and looked Shirl dead in the eye. 'No, Shirl,' she said, 'you're wrong. He does mean it.' And she left." Shortly after, the pastor decided to dish Luava some of the abuse he'd used on Debbie Valgos. Following Sunday services, while Luava waited within earshot in the church, the pastor collared Mark for a 'talk' in the law offices adjoining. "He was punching and kicking me," remembers Mark. "And yelling in crude anatomical detail everything he said he bet I was doing to her when we were alone. He knew she would hear, that's why he did it."

And that was Luava's last Sunday at the Westboro Church. She walked out and down to the shopping center on Gage Boulevard where she called her father to come pick her up. When she told Mark it was over, Luava says she never asked him to leave the church. She didn't believe he could. She knew he had been taught that, if he left, he would be taken by God during the first night while he slept and that he would wake up in hell.

Mark, for his part, was in despair. The 19 year-old flung himself face down in Luava's yard and cried. And there he remained for two hours, embarrassing her parents in front of the neighbors. Luava's dad even came to her and told her, "I didn't realize you were so hard-hearted,"

Such emotional firmness in a 16 year-old was remarkable. But Luava didn't know what else to do. She had no intention of joining the Westboro family cult and raising children in that kind of environment, she says. And she Mark wouldn't leave. Meanwhile, one can only imagine the kind of talk this generated among the deeper keels in Luava's cheerleading set. She was certainly a girl with a foot in both worlds.

After the break-up, reportedly neither Mark nor Luava slept or ate for days. "I walked around in a fog," says Mark. Then he found out he would get a 'B' instead of an 'A' in one of his courses at Washburn. "That meant I was in for more trouble," he adds. "Somehow, the idea my father might now hurt my body after making my heart so miserable...it just seemed insane and ridiculous...and if all this misery was to please God, I was beginning to think it was awfully mean and petty for a Being that had created such a majestic universe... "And that's when I began to hope Luava might be right. That God was a loving God, and not full of hate like my father...and that if He was made of love...then he wouldn't send me to hell for loving her so much, would He? "So I did it. "I just grabbed some clothes and went to a friend's house. He'd told me if I ever wanted to leave, I'd be welcome to stay with his family the first few days. I just showed up on their doorstep and they took me in."

Mark pauses. "It might seem funny now, but those were the most terrifying hours of my life. I lay awake most of the night in their guest room, in cold, absolutely cold terror. Waiting for God to take me. Afraid if I fell asleep, I'd wake up in hell. Literally. The ultimate nightmare. "But I didn't. I woke up in the same bed the next morning. It was then I realized God might be nicer and the world bigger than my father had taught." Mark landed on his feet, renting a room from a retired couple and working, first as a busboy, then as a salesman in a downtown shoestore. He and Luava were re-united, dating on weekend and talking every night on the phone.

However, Mark was in a serious car accident six weeks later and miraculously escaped injury. "That shook me up," he says. "I thought God was giving me one last chance before He did what my father said He'd do. So I high-tailed it back home." And Luava broke it off again. "This time I wasn't so strong," she recalls. "I was totally miserable. I almost went over there many times."

By this time Fred had taken to calling her 'the Philistine whore', so life with father and a broken heart soon had Mark willing to play tennis with death once more. After a few weeks, he returned to his new life. Only to have the pastor swoop in to snatch him back, as he had with Kathy.

"That time, however," says Mark, "I was lucky. Just as we pulled up to the church on 12th, some of my dad's law clients pulled up too. "It was like a Hitchcock film: my father couldn't do anything in front of them, so I just got out, walked through the front door, and out the back. Nobody stopped me."

After that, Mark held on to his independence and his dreams with an impressive tenacity. "I knew I made enough money for only two of the following," he says: "an apartment; a car; and college tuition. I needed the car; and-now that it was for me and not my father-I wanted to finish college."

For two years, Mark slept in his car or in the backroom of the print shop where he worked all day. In the evenings he took classes, and on weekends he worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant. He took his showers at the gym. Luava completed her junior year and senior years at Topeka High, dating Mark on weekends.

Despite the pastor's curiously vivid and explicit imagination, the young couple's relationship remained chaste and unconsummated. When his brother Fred asked Mark to be his best man at his wedding, Mark was thrilled and agreed. But when he showed up at the Westboro church for the ceremony, the pastor demanded Mark recant or depart before they went forward.

"It was a trap," says Mark wearily. "If he ever missed a beat at being a jerk-he did it before I was born." Mark departed. He has never been back. Nor did the pastor miss his beat damning his second son to the fires of hell. When Mark refused to die in his sleep, Phelps sent him his notice of eviction from the assembled elect of The Place: Mark was cast out and "delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh". The pastor then tore up both Mark and Kathy's pictures in front of the rest of the family. (Kathy was also gone by then: she was working as a waitress and living with a soldier on 12th and Topeka; apparently the GI took a dim view of anyone kidnapping his girlfriend, and the Phelps quick-reaction team left her unmolested.)

Mark did see his father again however. At the YMCA gym one day, the pastor took the time to stalk up to Mark, close so no one else could hear, and whisper, his glittering with hatred: "I hope God kills you." God didn't.

In May, 1976, Mark graduated from Washburn University with a business degree. In August of that year, he married his childhood sweetheart after a courtship that had lasted since 1971. He was 22. She was 19. Though the family Phelps were all invited, none of them came. Many of them might have wanted to be there, but they had been forbidden to attend. Pastor Phelps had threatened anyone who did with being "delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh".

If Fred Phelps is ever granted the preponderance of his wishes, old Satan will be burning the midnight oil, destroying all that flesh. But, devil knows, weddings are a lot work. The newlyweds cramped apartment on 15th and Lane quickly became the headquarters for Phelps exiles. At one point, both Nate and Margie were living within its tiny confines alongside Mark and Luava.

"We didn't have much time to ourselves," laughs Mark's wife. "He brought half his family out with him. Fortunately, Nate and I have always been friends. And, back then at least, Margie and I were too." Later the dissident couple would be the consolation and support for Paulette, Jonathon's mistress driven from Westboro when she became pregnant by him. Abandoned by Jonathon and rejected by his family, "she went through some pretty tough times," remembers Mark. Nate's departure was more dramatic. Inclined towards the freethinker and sceptic, and long the family's designated scapegoat, Nate was initially not so torn about leaving the assembly of the elect. "He constantly told me I was worthless," says Nate about his father. "That I was a son of Belial (Satan); I was going to end up in prison; I was evil. That message came through loud and clear. For years since, I have had to struggle to achieve any sense of worthiness in the eyes of God or man. "My father often opined I was such a loser, I'd never even make it through high school. Two weeks before the end of my senior year, when it was apparent I would, he decided my weight needed constant watching. Instead of being allowed to take my final exams. I was pulled out of school and made to ride a stationary bicycle six hours a day. Now...there's a rational act...a real daddy-non-compis-mentis. "So I didn't graduate. I had to take the GED later for my high school diploma." Nate clears his throat.: "A few weeks before my 18th birthday, I bought an old Rambler for $350. I parked it down the street and I didn't tell anyone I had it. I took my things out to the garage a little at a time, and I hid them amid the mess out there." On the night before his birthday, around 15 minutes to midnight on November 21, 1976, Nate pulled his car into the drive, opened the garage, and loaded his few personal belongings in the back. Leaving his keys in the ignition, the black sheep walked into his childhood house of fear and pain. He climbed the stairs to the room where his father slept and he...screamed. At the top of his lungs. And left. That night, Nate slept in the men's room of an APCO gas station because it was heated. He found work and eventually ended up living with Mark, Luava, and Margie (who was also experimenting with adult independence).

When the couple moved to St. Louis, Margie and Nate took an apartment and jobs in Kansas City. The Nate went to work and for Mark at a print shop in St. Louis, and Margie returned to the Westboro community. She would become one of Pastor Phelps' staunchest defenders. In 1978, Mark, Luava, and Nate returned and opened their first copy shop in Prairie Village, a suburb of Kansas City. It was a success. In 1979, the couple opened another shop in Topeka, and Nate stayed in Kansas City to manage the first. At that point, says Nate, "it hit me." It was the first time he'd ever been totally separated from all of his family. Though he held no illusions about his father, deep down Nate had always wanted to be a part of the rest-his mother and brothers and sisters-in some other capacity than the bad seed. Now, he felt cut off and alone. It was exactly then that his sisters began calling him, pressing him to return, saying they could call be one family again, and that their father had stopped his beatings.

So, three years after his Jim-Morrison-exit, the prodigal returned. However, the pastor's idea of a welcome was to draw up, not a feast, but a document. Nate remembers they had him sit down and pen a letter to Mark-which they dictated. It was left on Nate's desk at the shop in Kansas City, and it informed Mark he had lost his manager without notice due to Mark's serving as ballast for that manager's slide into hell. In August of 1993, in a desperate attempt to discredit what she must have imagined was going to be devastating testimony from the 'bad' son (as much or more of the evidence against the pastor came from the 'good' son), Margie Phelps announced to Capital-Journal investigators she had "the smoking gun to prove Nate is lying".

It was a copy of Nate's sign-off to Mark of 14 years before. The letter, she said, proved Nate was on good terms with his family three years after he'd claimed he'd cut his ties to them. Curious as to why the copy of a letter written by Nate and delivered to Mark would find its way into Margie's possession so long after the fact, investigators then heard from Nate how Shirley and Margie had given him the paper and dictated the letter to Mark as one of the terms for Nate's return. The fact that the Westboro Church kept it on file, as a potential lever on Nate at some point in the future-even if that future came nearly in the next generation-can only finds its parallel in the handbooks of the KGB.

The Phelps family congregation may not be able to place the name or face of the girl the pastor drove to suicide, but they never misplace a letter-even if that letter was never addressed to them. For Nate, rebirth into his family came with the pastor's umbilical drawn tight around his neck. He was hazed like a plebe at Fred's West Point.

Though he got his meals now, Nate was expected to work in the law office full-time for that and a room. He was also expected to complete college and attend law school. "And, in return for my work, my father would pay my tuition," says Nate. "But I had no desire for law school, and I had debts to pay. I needed a cash income-not just room and board." Nate declined the work in the law offices and found employment outside the compound.

In the meantime, his father refused to talk to him, handling any business through intermediaries. Nate attended services, but was excluded from the adult male congregation. Instead, he worshiped with the women and children. "Every Sunday, just prior to services, all the men in the church would congregate in the old man's office to sit and chat. When they filed out and took their seats in the auditorium, it signaled services were beginning. It was a rite of passage for the older boys when they were allowed to join. You know, then or before, I was never included." During the ensuing months, his father still refused to speak to him. Instead, envoys were sent to inform Nate the pastor was displeased he was working 'outside'. Again and again, it was suggested to Nate he ought to give up the 'outside' job and work in the law office; that his father would pay him for this by sending him to law school. Nate always refused. He didn't want to go to law school. And he needed cash to pay his debts. He was 21 at the time. "If my dad had paid a wage, even a small one, it would have been OK. But money in your pocket, to him, meant less control over you. It implied mobility and independence, something he was not going to tolerate."

All of the loyal Phelps children and their approved spouses followed the pastor's formula: they worked as law clerks, legal secretaries, and gophers for Fred as he churned out lawsuits. In return, the pastor took care of what he had decided were their needs. Finally, one Sunday their father devoted his entire sermon to denouncing the reprobate in the midst: Nate was not of The Place, not one of the elect, or he would be happy to join in the toils of the family enterprise. The pastor announced there would be a meeting after the service where the family would 'decide' whether Nate should stay or go. "I started packing my bag," says Nate. "Family councils never contradicted my dad. He just called them when he wanted everyone else to feel responsible for something he had every intention of doing, regardless."

After he'd thrown his few belongings together, Nate remembers he dozed off on his bed, waiting for the verdict. He was awakened by a fist pounding on his door. It was Jonathon. The two brothers were less than a year apart. "You have to go,: Jonathon told his older brother. "You have to go tonight." The Phelps family scapegoat nodded stoically. He hoisted his bag and stepped through the door. His younger brother gave him no hand to shake, no pat on the back, no words of farewell-only silence. Nate has not seen his father since. Once, he went back to visit his mom: "It had been years since I'd talked to her," he relates bitterly. "She'd only see me for two minutes at the back door. And she kept looking over her shoulder the entire time. I felt like a hobo asking for a meal." But Nate, who, like Kathy, had taken the brunt of his father's cruelty and abuse, would find he could not leave his past behind so easily. When he drove away that night after his family council, rejected, wounded, and now self-destructive, Nate Phelps-gratis the pastor-had become dangerous to himself and his community. Like Debbie Valgos, Nate would now be all the bad things his father had said he was.

Unlike Debbie, Nate was 6'4" and 280 pounds. And, unlike her, he was just as inclined to violence against others as he was against himself. He plunged into a world of drugs, drink, violence, and hooligan friends, and very nearly accomplished his parents' self-fulfilling prophesy that he would be the convict of the family. "When I first left," says Nate, "right away I moved in with some wild boys living above the VW shop on 6th Street. They had a perpetual party going there for almost four months. A keg was permanently on tap. "When I hit that, boy, did I have an attitude. I remember I was real belligerent and anti-authority." Ten months later, addicted to speed and crystal meth, without shoes, penniless, and desperate, the prodigal giant appeared on Mark and Luava's doorstep only a few days before the couple moved to California. Haunted by ghosts of his father's hatred, enraged by the memories of his physical abuse, and emotionally disemboweled by the knowledge his mother and his siblings had offered him up, an entire childhood sacrificed, to save themselves, Nate Phelps had become a rider on the storm. Soon the pastor might have had reason for dancing and clapping his hands again. But the pastor's appointed angel and his projected devil knew instantly they were veterans from the same war. They needed each other. Each sensed he might be able to redeem his brother: the one of his guilt; the other from a coffin void of love or self-esteem. Thus, the former favorite of Fred and back-up mattock-beater was the only Phelps who could understand and forgive the rage of the family's designated criminal and black sheep. The 'good' Phelps boy forgave the 'evil' one his impulsive betrayal of the year before, and he invited his little brother to come to California with them. Today, Mark Phelps owns a successful chain of copy stores in Southern California. He and Luava have two children.

Nate manages the largest in the chain. He is happily married, drug- free, and content. He and his wife, Tammi, are raising four children. Nate still receives treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and, ironically, some of the Vietnam vets who receive the same therapy say their year in hell sounds preferable to his 18 inside the walls of Westboro. Both brothers say they cringe at the thought of anyone touching their kids. They know what darkness may yet linger in their souls from their father's nightmare, and they daily guard against it emerging in their behavior toward their own children. Mark and Nate live four blocks from each other in an upscale Orange County community surrounded by pine forest. Both couples are devout Christians-though the god the boys worship is now a loving one. And, after growing up with the Pastor Phelps, not much can rattle them"

Recently, after answering some questions concerning minor details for the story, Nate announced calmly, "Well, I should get off. I have to pack now." Were they going somewhere? "Yes. For now. The fire is coming down the mountain. It's only two miles from here,"

"Fire? That's terrible! What about Mark and Luava?" "Oh, she was packed three hours ago." The racing blaze missed their homes, (Not the kind of punishment predicted by the pastor for those he feels have 'gone against' his assembled elect at the compound in Topeka.)

While the emotional cocktail mixed at the Phelps of Westboro seems perpetually one part cruelty, one part anger, one part hysteria, and one part maudlin self-pity, the lasting impression left after hours of phone conversations with Nate and Mark is one of serenity. They have the calm wisdom of mariners who have been rescued from a wild sea. The one saved by a brother's love; the other buoyed up by a teenage girl's moral courage. Mark and Nate Phelps have found their peace and happiness. They would like to help their brothers and sisters do the same, but they have not yet discovered how to reach them. And the two brothers, survivors, themselves are not unscathed.

"I'm OK during the day," says Nate. "It's late at night when it all comes back. I sometimes just sit and there after my family is asleep. You know, and it comes back. All the feelings of pain, and violation, and outrage. And I try to deal with it. Then I'm OK again." Mark laughs. "I've had a recurring dream for years now. I'm out driving around and I turn up a street and it looks familiar. I can't place it so I keep driving. Then I see the church and realize where I am. I hot the gas to get out of there, but the car suddenly dies.

Then my father and my brothers and sisters start coming out. But I can't start the car. I'm cranking the engine for dear life and it's not catching. "As they come out in the street, I'm trying to lock all the doors and roll up the windows...but I forget the driver's door... "They pull me out.

And Daddy says: 'What the hell do you think you're doing? Were you selling on Prairie Road tonight?'"

CHAPTER NINE

"The False Prophet"

Sometime around 1975, Phelps began to find his option to beat his family restricted. By then, Mark and Kathy had already rebelled and left, and the other children were fast becoming adults of not inconsiderable size. About a year before Nate left, he remembers an incident which must have put the abusive pastor on notice to find new outlets for his hate. "One day he was beating mom upstairs," Nate recalls. "He'd been doing it for some time. Shirley and Margie and I were in the dining room downstairs, and Margie and I were getting madder and madder. Shirl wouldn't get mad-she'd always start crying and pacing around whenever anyone was getting beaten. "Margie finally went and got a butcher knife from the kitchen. The three of us went to the bottom of the stairs. But our voices stuck in our throats. We couldn't call out. None of us. We were so scared."

When the raging reverend chased his wife out onto the landing, he saw them. Fred stared down at them: "Get the hell outta here." Margie held the knife up where he could see it. "You've got to stop this," she told him.

The pastor slowly descended the steps. His children backed up but didn't leave. For a long moment he glared at them. Then he said quietly: "Fine, you SOBs." And he turned and went back to his bedroom. For three weeks after that, Fred Phelps had no contact with his family except at church. He stayed in his room until it was time to give his sermon. After Nate departed the fold in 1976, apparently the pastor began to worry about the success of his methods. He'd raised a congregation from his loins, and now they were bailing out at the first opportunity. Fred Jr., Mark, Nate, Kathy, Dorotha, Margie, Rebekah, and Jonathon would all leave home at some point. It was at this point that his wife and daughters apparently convinced Phelps that, if he wanted his family, he'd have to stay his hand. From then on, it was the outside community which more and more would become the outlet for the pastor's rage. Nate was coaxed back to the family compound three years later by his sisters' assurances 'the old man' had changed, that things were better now, and he wasn't beating anymore. But, as Nate quickly found out, the pastor still sought total control over his children's private and emotional lives. He left for good. Nate's younger brother, Jonathon, met Paulette when he was still in law school. She joined the Westboro church and was highly cooperative, though the pastor frowned on her for not following his path (Paulette has no law degree.). Later, when it was discovered they were fornicating, Paulette was driven from The Place. Jon was allowed to stay. Though by this time he was a practicing lawyer, all of Jon's adult privileges were taken away by his father. Members of the church were assigned to accompany him 24 hours a day to guard against his backsliding with Paulette. As a hedge against his leaving, each day he was given only enough money from the common family finances to buy his lunch. But the damage had already been done. Paulette had conceived. Living with her parents, abandoned by Jonathan, an object of contempt to his family, Paulette turned in desperation to the Phelps boys who'd moved to California. Mark and Luava say they had many a late-night counseling session over the phone with Paulette while she carried her baby to term. After their child was born, apparently Jon's girl wanted nothing more to do with him. But Jon was having second thoughts. Six months after he'd become a father, he petitioned the court for joint custody and visitation rights.

According to court records, Jon claimed Paulette would not accept payments of support, that she had refused him visitation rights, and that she would not allow him to take their child from her parents' home. When the couple actually confronted each other before a judge, however, Paulette saw only Jon, and he only had eyes for the woman he loved and their tiny daughter. And Fred Phelps with his threats of hell and hatred of Christmas must suddenly have seemed so very far from the god who had given them their little girl. Jonathon deserted the Westboro church and moved in with Paulette's family. They were married soon after. By now, it was apparent to the pastor that Mark and Nate's move to California in 1981 was going to be permanent.

"So, when Jonathon left, my father had lost three sons," says Marks. "At that point," he adds, referring to his and Luava's long conversations with Paulette at the time, "my dad decided it might be better to relax his rules and keep his family than end with an empty church." Jonathon and Paulette were allowed to return to the congregation with their illegitimate child in 1988.

Unable since then to either beat and browbeat his family, the Pastor Phelps seems to have focused instead on his therapeutically malicious law practice. This is the period, 1983-1989, when he is reprimanded for this unchecked spate of extortional demand letters, when he eventually federally disbarred for his wild and vitriolic attacks on three judges, and when he sues Ronald Reagan over appointing an ambassador to the Vatican.

Fred's swan song in the federal courts in February, 1989 left him unable to express his most persistent of urges: to hurt and humiliate other human beings. Already prevented from punching up his grandchildren, and now banned from the barrister's ring, the old pugilist took stock and realized he still had his fists and his faithful urge to abuse.

Buffalo Fred took his wild ego show out of his house, out of the courtroom, and into the streets. Within months, he was running for governor, tramping importantly about the state and churning out position papers on the general corruption of the Adamic race. The spotlight, so comforting and necessary to prankster pastor, had returned.

He only garnered six percent of the vote. No matter. Nine months after losing the election, Fred Phelps unveiled his next therapeutic crusade: his left hooks rained on same comparatively helpless and unsuspecting heads when he opened the "Great Gage Park Decency Drive"-which quickly escalated into his current death-to-fags campaign.

To hear the pastor describe his new venture, one feels in the presence of a Napoleon crossing the river Neiman to invade Russia-two great empires, the one good, the other evil, about to clash, finally, and to the death. To read his crusading literature, however, leaves a different impression: The "Great Gage Park Decency Drive" hovers between vaudeville and the bizarre. One campaign fax churned out during November of 1993 would seem to cover both choices.

For vaudeville, the pastor poses a question: can God-fearing Christian families picnic or play touch football there (Gage Park) without fear of contradicting AIDS? HELL, NO!" He then describes the enemy activity in suspicious detail: "Open fag rectal intercourse in public restrooms, in the rose garden, in the rock garden, in the theater, in the rainforest, in the swimming pool, on the softball fields, on the swing sets, or the train-it's everywhere..." And for the bizarre: In the same fact epistle, Fred to the Sodomites, the pastor reviews his son-in- law's opus of investigative endeavor, The Conspiracy within a Conspiracy. For those arriving late, Conspiracy is the privately published book by Brent Roper, who made the "it will be harder now, but I will destroy them" attribution to Judge Rogers in Chapter Six. In the fax, Fred defends Roper's thesis that Truman Capote passed AIDS simultaneously to both Jack Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe during a touch football game in the Rose Garden "when a gang tackle went awry". According to the fax, the CIA later killed both the president and Marilyn to keep them from infecting the country-Capote's own longevity notwithstanding. In any case, touch football seems to be the one thing consistently on Fred's mind here. In the midst of his anti-gay campaign, the pastor also ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992 for Topeka mayor in 1993. He lost both races. Of the two, his Senate bid will likely be the better-remembered: Phelps, in a great plains parody of the late senator from Wisconsin, warned the voters darkly that homosexuals were taking over America, and accused Gloria O'Dell, his opponent for the Democratic, of being a lesbian. Unelected after three races, the angry pastor maneuvered to advance his hate-gays crusade from local TV spots and neighborhood pickets to the national media. The Westboro congregation traveled to Washington, D.C. to taunt the Gay Pride March in the spring of 1993. It was red meat for a sensation-hungry press. Fred and found his rhythm. Even before then, however, the nine children still loyal to him had campaigned enthusiastically alongside, picketing in rain, snow, or sun. Why?

Says Nate: "You known that Lite beer commercial where the guy goes up to the two other guys and gets them to fight over his comparison of two incomparable issues ('Tastes great!/Nope, less Filling!)? My dad does that. "Deep down, my brothers and sisters know they've been denied the right to be themselves-free adults-and that combines with all of his abuse and anger toward them until their rage is uncontrollable inside. He helps them find a focus to vent that out. And then he steps aside." Mark agrees: "Everyone is very angry there. That's why they overeat. It's a very charged atmosphere. All that frustrated energy needs to be discharged in some form of conflict." Though this latter observation is almost 13 years old, it still provides an accurate summation of one reporter's experience who spent six weeks in daily contact with the family Phelps in the fall of 1993. Fred has a captive family congregation: their fear of hell and fear of him still control them, like the elephant's rope. His loyal children have fulfilled his ambitions rather than their own. They live at his side and do his work. And since his rage has become their outrage, a wrath they dare not turn back on him, Fred's kids have eagerly joined in whenever he has sallied forth from Westboro to smite the Adamic race. Margie Phelps admits many in her family have become emotionally dependent on the death-to- gays crusade: "A lot of us have been able to work through emotional problems because of the picketing," she says. She explains the bonding and the sense of goals have brought them closer and taken each person's focus off their own personal difficulties. "It would be very hard for them to give up the picketing now," she observes, and quotes with some apparent relief the circumstances outlined by her father for an end to his grim campaign: the return of Jesus; the capitulation of all homosexuals; "or they kill us. Otherwise it will go on."

What's important here is the Phelps family has found something they can all enjoy doing together. And it's helping them to grow and realize more about themselves. All except one. Dorotha, on of the youngest Phelps children, left the compound in 1990.

She was 25 at the time and already an established attorney. "We were all supposed to get law degrees, stay home, and live happily every after," she says. "The problem was, I wasn't happy. "My father's operating mode is one of perpetual warfare. I thought once he'd been disbarred, it would die down, and he would stop-you know-being so aggressive. He wrote that book (still an unpublished manuscript) comparing the courts to the Corsican Mafia...but I guess it didn't go anywhere. "And then he started all these other things... "It's just not going to die down. It's not going to quit. He's such an egomaniac. He liked to keep things stirred up because he likes attention. He likes to be center stage. It just wore me out. The constant pressure there was just too much. "But," adds Dorotha, who goes by 'Dottie', "despite all his flaws, he's the leader of the church as well as a father. If they (her family back at the compound) believe, they also accept him." The pastor is enthusiastic about his new therapy: "The Bible approves only of sex within marriage," he insists. "But whore mongers and adulterers God will damn to hell! "No premarital sex! No extramarital sex! No divorces, no remarriages-and for God's sakes-NO ANAL COPULATING!" (In which case, come the Rapture, Westboro Baptist will still be holding services.)

Fred continues: "Anytime a famous fag dies of AIDS, we're going to picket his funeral, wherever it is." He adds he subscribes to the New York Times because it identifies gays who've died of AIDS. Phelps is literally giggling now, able to appear on shows like Jane Whitney, Ricki Lake, and 20/20 and talk dirty to gays. On top of the verbal abuse the pastor heaps from the television screen, he claims he's doing gays a favor by disrupting their funerals, outraging their mourners, and picketing the businesses that employ them. Raising this kind of ruckus is...well...a bit of necessary bad taste to get the "good word" out. Interviewed on KBRT radio in Los Angeles, Phelps was asked: "What about the Bible advice that Christians are to have the wisdom of serpents and the meekness of doves?"

To which he responded: "The next to last verse in Jude says we were to make to a sharp difference in how we are to approach people to win them. On some, have compassion, making a difference. Others you should save with fear. "That means using the authority of terrorizing people about the coming fires of God's judgement and wrath, as opposed to approaching them with compassion." Trouble is, Phelps may have yet to meet the sinner he deems worthy of the compassionate path. The pastor has generated most of his notoriety from public outrage at his desecration of funeral and burial rites. To this, he has a formulaic response, most recently offered to Chris Bull of The Advocate in defense of emotionally brutalizing the mourners for Kevin Oldham, a native of Kansas City who had found success in New York as a composer: "Compared to hell and eternal punishment, their (the mourners) suffering is trivial. If Kevin could come back, he would ask me to please preach at his funeral, and he say, 'For God's sake, listen to Fred Phelps.' Dying time is truth time. These poor homosexual creatures live lives predicated on a fundamental lie, and they die engrossed in the lie. It seems to me to be the cruelest thing of all to stand over their dead, filthy bodies keeping the lies going." Yet Phelps doesn't believe homosexuals can be redeemed, an attitude which cast his actions, not as salvation-through-fear, but as pointless and abusive. Almost any day on the picket line in Topeka, he can be heard announcing to the occasional passerby who stops to talk: "Deep-dyed fags cannot be saved. God has given them up." The pastor seems uninterested when other Christian ministers attempt to show him differently. One the same KBRT talk show, Phelps intoned: "It's my position that they (gays) fit in that category of the most depraved and degenerate of Adam's race. And probably these guys are past hope for salvation.

"And it was a long time coming to that. I've never seen one such person converted in 46 years of preaching this Bible." "I've seen a number of homosexuals come to Christ," protests the announcer, up to now quite warn to Fred's message. "I'd like to meet one," says Fred.

The announcer mentions a young man, a reformed homosexual, who, after 'coming to Christ', has established an AIDS ministry that is now nationwide. "Herb Hall," says the how's host, "is one of the most solid soul winners I've seen in decades." They reach Hall by phone at his home in Garden Grove, New Jersey. He invites Fred to come and see, that there's plenty of gays who turned to Christ and ceased their sodomy. "I think it's a put-on," says Fred. He resists the suggestion that Phelps and Hall confer on what they've learned during their separate campaigns against homosexuality. "I'd love to sit down and talk with you, and meet with you," begins Hall.

"We'll have to do that," responds Phelps, "because your story so far is not convincing, and it sounds very canned and put on to me." When the announcer again vouches for Hall, Phelps says reluctantly: "I gotta talk to him first, and I gotta know more..." Then to Hall: "Are you gonna call me?"

Announcer: "Oh! We've just hung up on him. But we have his number, and we'll give that to you, OK?" Phelps: "OK. Thank you. I'm very interested." But Preacher Phelps never called. So Hall called him. He remembers their conversation below:

"Pastor Phelps, when Jesus approached the prostitute, all the people who had surrounded her, He wrote their sins in the dirt. That's why they left her alone. Unless we show them (homosexuals), love and compassion, and really comfort them, we'll never be able to reach them." Hall says Phelps told him he'd never seen a homosexual that had ever changed, and he doubted that Hall had.

"Pastor, I am a homosexual. I've changed. And I will be in heaven someday." According to Hall, Phelps doubted that also. "So you think it (homosexuality) is the one unforgivable sin?" Yes, said Phelps.

In an interview with Jim Doblin, a television reporter for WIBW-TV, Channel 13 in Topeka, Phelps shared a bit more. If everyone was predestined from the womb, regardless of what they did in life, asked Doblin, wouldn't there be a homosexual or two among the Elect?

No, Phelps insisted. "Three times within eight verses in Romans, Chapter 1, it says God has given these people up. If the only power in the universe that can call you to Jesus Christ has given you up, how you gonna get there?" In fact, Phelps has shown little interest in getting the "good word" out at all. His record in this new campaign shows his focus is on ego dominance, insult, and therapeutic lashing out.

Offers Phelps from the same interview with Doblin: "My ol' dad used to say, 'you're gettin' people mad at you, bubba! An' if you're determined to get 'em mad at you, I recommend you just walk up and kick 'em in the shins-it won't take so long!' "I believe I finally took my ol' dad's advice: just walk up and kick 'em in the shins!" The pastor breaks into a big grin: "God hates fags!"

He's obviously enjoying himself. But why kick them in the shins if they can't be saved? Fred can't answer that. Because she knows he's not trying to save anyone. For his own secret reasons, he needs to hurt people, and he's chosen homosexuals. Reacting to a joint statement condemning his anti-gay activities that was signed by 47 Topeka area religious leaders, Phelps, in a letter to The Advocate wrote: "I love it. I'm a Baptist preacher, and that means I'm a hate preacher." When it comes to any serious attempt to explore a religious issue via considered argument and fair rebuttal, however, Pastor Phelps has proved a no-show, On August 23, 1993, Dick Snider, a columnist for the Capital- Journal, printed part of the letter from an English professor at Spoon River College in Canton, Illinois. Farrell Till was a Bible debater, and he wanted a chance to debate Fred on God's hatred of homosexuals. By midmorning, the faxes came rolling in at the newsroom and offices all over the capital: a photo of the pastor, looking pensive and studious at his desk, and the words emblazoned:

I ACCEPT!

LET'S DEBATE!

Followed by the missive: "Not since two of my heroes (Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan) slugged it out at the famous Scopes Monkey Trial at Dayton, Tennessee in July, 1925, has the issue of the inerrancy of the Bible been properly debated. If Farrell Till is for real, let's get it on. "Your newspaper can work out the details and send circulation off the charts. And your own involvement to date in this historic event will more than justify your otherwise pitiful existence on this earth as a wayward son of Adam. Kindest regards. Fred Phelps." Farrell Till was notified his challenge had been accepted. He immediately sent the pastor a courteous letter, via the Capital-Journal, outlining his qualifications to engage in a serious scholarly exchange and requesting Phelps contact him to work out a compatible date. Fred forgot. Though he was reminded several times by both the paper and Till, the impulsive pastor never remembered to set that date.

By Christmas, Till reported he had inquired by phone or letter five times and received no response. Coincidentally, during the same time period, the Capital-Journal had arranged for a round-table exchange in print: participating with Phelps would have been Tex Sample, a liberal minister from St. Paul's School of Theology in Kansas City; Rabbi Lawrence Karol, an old testament scholar in Topeka; and Scott Clark, a primitive Baptist (old Calvinist) minister from Fred's own sect, now working on his doctorate in theology at Oxford University. Fred would exchange views in print with clergymen of three differing faiths to avoid the discussion becoming mired in minor sectarian conflicts.

All four agreed to participate, and all agreed to the tennis format: Phelps would serve by responding to three questions; the others would return with comment, and Phelps would bat it back. To the three questions-Does God hate? Does God hate gays? By what authority do you judge?-Phelps submitted a brief response. His turbid theology was quickly returned to him, analyzed as unfounded and unbiblical-even by the Oxford Calvinist of his own sect. Now here was a battle of the Titans! Let's get it on! But again the would-be William Jennings Bryan fled the field, muttering he'd heard all those false arguments before and couldn't be bothered refuting them again.

Pity. All those reprobates out there who've never heard his refutations...it would be like water to parched souls... Twice turning tail at the opportunity for his truth to confront publicly the world's falsehoods...a very odd response indeed for someone who claims his only aim in his crude, cruel, and vindictive behavior is to get the "good word" out to a world of stubborn reprobates. Each time has been offered the chance to present his message in a fair and sober forum-sans shin-kicking and street theater-the earnest pastor has passed. In fairness, it would be observed that, since his tent emptied that night in Vernal, Utah, Phelps has preached almost entirely to the converted and the blood-related. He may find an opinion differing from his own to be a frightening and flight-triggering experience. Or perhaps the amateur Biblical erudition gained during that long, arduous summer Phelps spent between his baptism and ordination failed him when he entered the arena of professional scholarship. Whatever the cause, the pastor appears long on antics, insults, and threats-short on good news the reprobates can use. Of the 12 abominations listed in the Old Testament, pride in one-homosexuality is not. "His dad couldn't care less about God or the Bible," says Luava. "He just happened to embrace that structure to create a framework for himself as god. What he says, goes. In his mind, and in his life, he is god." "He's not for anything but Fred," adds Nate. "Whatever it is he has to do to get attention, he'll do it."

Mark interrupts: "...He helped himself to any behavior he ever wanted to have and then left it for others to clean up. He's operating at the level of a two year-old. My little girl just goes up and shoves someone sometimes, but she's two. He does not hesitate to do what my little Becky does, but he does it in adult ways. "He's completely out-focused and totally high right now. He's got the best fix: drugs, beatings, all the raging and abusing he's done, all the political stirring-up he's caused, nothing compares to what he's doing now." Nate adds: "And each time it seems he has to ratchet it a little higher. Eventually it could end in tragedy for a lot of people." He shakes his head. "My father likes to hurt people. And he needs to hate them. Why, I don't know. But you can be sure of one thing: he'll always do it with the Bible. "They'll give us the fags," says Margie, referring to Topeka's generally hostile response to the pastor's message, "it's the 'God hates' part they can't stand. The notion that God hates humans is rejected so deeply by most people-that's what everyone is so angry about." If the strange case of Fred Phelps were, in fact, a doctrinal and not a mental health phenomenon, it would revolve on two issues: whether God hates some souls regardless of their character or actions and whether he hates homosexuals most of all. Absolute predestination-the theory that some people are bound for heaven before they are born, while others have a one-way ticket to hell-best focuses the beliefs of Westboro Baptist and its basilisk leader.

"It goes like this," says Fred, shifting into his preacher voice, talking slowly and emphasizing every syllable, "the everlasting love of God for some men and the everlasting hatred of God for other men is the grand doctrine that razes free will to the ground. "Hate in the deity is not a passion like it is with humans, you know. It is a purpose that is part of His nature and His essential attributes."

The Bible is chock full of hate, says the pastor. "From all eternal ages past, God has loved some of Adam's race and purposed to do them good, and he's hated the rest and purposed to punish them for their sins." Attributes of God linked to hate, anger, wrath and punishment are used two-thirds more often in the Bible than attributes linked to love, mercy, pity, long-suffering, gentleness and goodness, he claims

"You can't be a Bible preacher without preaching the hatred of God, the wrath of God. It is a fabrication, this modern Christianity, that says good old God loves everybody." Implicit in all this talk of predestination is the assumption that Fred, at last, is going to heaven. Yet the Bible, as it interpreted by predestinists, says the elect will not be revealed until the Judgement Day. Tacitly, the pastor's congregation counts him early in that tiny group and looks to him for a sign they'll be a part too. Not only is Phelps without Bible authority to designate them elect, he may not be elect himself. His ministry could be that of a reprobate. A summary of some of the objections raised to the pastor's philosophy of hate by Sample, Clark, and Karol is listed below. The text of the original exchange is contained in the appendix.

1) It rejects a 3000 year-old rabbinical interpretation of the Jacob and Esau story in favor of one of his own.

2) It mistranslates and falsely equates the words for the anger and wrath of God that so often occur in the Old Testament with a divine hatred of mankind.

3) When the Bible does speak of God hating, God is described as hating the act or the sin-not the sinner.

4) The speaker in the book of Psalms does profess hatred for the sinner- but the voice is that of the psalmist, not of God.

5) Phelps pointedly ignores the emphasis in the New Testament on love and forgiveness. One may find lichen growing on the floor of a redwood forest-but that does not make it a moor, not so long as the landscape is dominated by the giant trees.

The prophet of hate grins broadly when asked how it feels being the target of so much hatred himself now:

"You guys don't seem to understand what motivates me." He chuckles. As usual, a Bible verse serves as his answer. "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you and revile you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven." Phelps seems giddy, His words roll off his tongue in a Mississippi drawl tinged with excitement. "I love them to death," he says of those who criticize him. "If they weren't doing that, how am I going to get all that 'great is your reward in heaven'? If you are preaching the truth of God, people are going to hate you. And they can't often or always articulate why, and so they fall back on specious, insincere and false reasons for why they hate you. And you swim in a sea of lies. And I love it!"

Phelps seems to lead a euphoric life, Today he is wearing his trademark running shoes, running shorts, and shirt and tie with a nylon running jacket, sleeves rolled up to his biceps. He has just returned from a noontime picket in downtown Topeka. "If the call was good, it never goes away," he chirps, referring to the 1946 revival that called him to preaching. "I have a hard time getting to sleep some nights from pure happiness." A wide smile blossoms on his windburned face. His eyes gleam and glitter. It's hard to imagine so much happiness taking root and growing out of so much hate. "If my father's going to become a spokesman for the Christian Reform Movement, it's important Christians realize who he really is," states Mark. "What worries me most is my brothers and sisters may see him as a Christ-like figure. "He has nothing to do with Christ. He is a sad, sick man who likes to hurt people. For a long as I've known him, he has been addicted to hate." Even a cursory glance at the pastor's most recent published material would seem to beat this out. The following random excerpts from his faxes can't be defended as "scaring 'em to salvation". They are mean and hateful and nothing more:

(December 2, 1993) Next to the headline, "FAGS: GOD'S HATE SPEAKS LOUDEST", is the text: "Fag Bishop Fritz Mutti...confessed his sins to ANTICHRIST CLINTON: He raised 2 fag sons for the Devil; they died of AIDS. GOOD RIDDANCE!"

(December 9, 1993) "Court Clerk JOYCE REEVES dying of cancer? Couldn't happen to a better dyke...May explain why she's super bitchy to the help. N.Y. Fag Son TODD's arrived, looking like AIDS on a stick. Patronize his Westboro Shop and go home with AIDS?"

(December 16, 1993) [When Topeka Police Sergeant, Dave Landis, only 45 years-old and with a wife and children, was suddenly paralyzed by a stroke, Phelps found time to gloat.] "You don't scare us, Officer Landis! Not even before the Lord turned you into a limp vegetable! "Westboro Baptist will picket fag cop Landis fundraiser...Fag cop John Sams and his FOP (Phaternal Order of Phags) will try to raise $12,500 to unscramble the brain of fag cop Dave Landis...Forget it, guys! When God scrambles eggs, man can't unscramble 'em. Westboro Baptist has picketed this evil Son of Belial at the VA hospital for 4 months now; Westboro Baptist will picket his funeral to give him a proper send-off to hell..."

Many of Fred Phelps' former adversaries and law school classmates have gone on to become luminaries, while he has slowly dissolved into a disbarred lawyer and failed preacher, supported by his abused children.

The more his own life slips into the periphery, the more stridently abusive he becomes. Pastor Phelps is one of many false prophets to come who will seek to exploit the loss of faith, soul, and identity in North America. As a society that has lost its path in a steaming, sensual, violent marsh of mindless, me-first, frantic consumerism, America is entering its dark middle age stupified by television and content to let its values be formed, not by saints, heroes, and visionaries, but by default, by advertising and market forces appealing to the basest urges in each of us. Our culture has grown childish and narcissistic, slothful and irrational. With the winter of our nation will soon follow the wolves-fierce white toothed beasts come to trip the flesh of our indolence.

Fred Phelps is one of them. And in our chaos and confusion, the false prophets will claim to lead us into a new day. But by this mark we shall know them: no matter how bright their vision, always it will demand someone or group be punished before a new day can come.

The dark angels will promise a bright tomorrow but ask for blood today.

Fifty years ago, looking ahead to our time, the poet, Yates, would lament:

"The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with a passionate intensity."