To be accorded the accolade of ‘first class nut’ by none other than Jerry Falwell is no small achievement. Yet that is a relatively mild epithet for the extremely controversial Fred Phelps. Phelps is the pastor of Westborough Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.
The church is primarily (some say exclusively) made up of his children and grandchildren. It resides in a protected ‘compound’ (with an Olympic size swimming pool for baptisms — it is said filled in either after one of the family almost drowned, or when their tax exempt status became problematic).
At any rate, Phelps is definitely a walk on the wild side of the American religious scene. His main ministry appears to be picketing funerals and other events of public attention in order to spread such edifying banners as ‘God hates America’. The web page for the organisation, in fact, is called http://www.godhatesfags.com (fag being anti-homosexual American street slang for gay). In Phelps’s view, the Christian leaders in America are insufficiently proclaiming hell. America needs a message of hate. One of the members of the church was beaten up for holding a banner declaring ‘Thank God for September 11th’. Phelps even has a picture of a young homosexual man who was murdered with flames flickering over his face, a counter underneath recording number of days in hell.
