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04/28/2010
Picket and choose it: When it comes to their own, why does Westboro stay home?
To this writer, Westboro Baptist Church's ultimate hypocrisy has been the fact that they have members of their own flock who have flittered away, yet they never see a need to protest any of those estranged loved ones. Shirley Phelps-Roper has a son who left and criticized (and presumably still criticizes) the church. Libby Phelps, another of Fred's grandchildren, recently made some news when she decided to leave, and then gave a (now-pulled) radio interview talking about that decision. And before them all, there was Nate Phelps, Fred Phelps' biological son who has been an extremely vocal critic of the harsh WBC treatment delivered at the mouth and hand of one Fred Waldron Phelps (which included physical beatings, Nate claims) ever since he left the Kansas compound.
Today Queerty makes note of that hypocrisy as it pertains to Nate:
Nate's visit to Topeka, meanwhile, was his first in twenty years. His father didn't send anyone to picket.
Nate Phelps Predicted the Death of the Westboro Baptist Church, And They Didn't Even Bother Protesting [Queerty]
I once asked Shirley Phelps Roper about her estranged son, and she pretty much danced around the subject (see e-exchange here). So wait, they can publicly oppose and picket countless other mothers' sons and daughters (who they blame for fostering the "sin"), but not the wee ones who were entrusted to them?!
I once asked Jael Phelps and some highly unfriendly Phelps young'un (Sara, I believe?) about Libby's departure, and neither could or would give me a straight answer about her "sin." So they can apparently publicly oppose and picket countless stranger's "sins," but not those who were fostered under their own roofs (and could be argued to be a reflection on the parents and church itself)?!
I once asked Shirley about the possibility of a gay WBC member, and then went back-and-forth with daughter Megan about why the standard is different now than it was when Shirley got pregnant out of wedlock. So the "standard" was somehow different in the 1970s?!
And now there's Nate. Nate is going around the country talking all about his experience and his negative thoughts about his family members antics. Yet it's Constance McMillen who they decide to picket instead?!
Just by WBC's own standard of everything "flowing through God" and that which happens to the child being a reflection of the parent...
(Shirley's the one speaking, Megan's her daughter)
(click to play audio clip)
*Audio Source: [96.5 The Buzz]
...one would think that they might want to spend at least an hour acknowledging the "pieces of solid evidence" that reflect their own ability to fully steward another generation of sign-wavers.
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