Fred Phelps Goes to Court

Matthew Pope, East’s 2008 Homecoming king, was 14 years old when he was spat at and told he was going to hell by a member of the anti-homosexual Westboro Baptist Church. He had just come out as gay earlier in the year and was holding hands with another man on the Plaza. Pope remembers feeling devastated and furious, in his “rebellious stage” as he describes.

Over the years, he gradually began to feel less offended by the group. When he got a call as a college freshman that there was a protest aimed at him by the very church that condemned him, he just laughed.

“I thought [the idea of the protest] was funny because, I mean, it was a year and a half after I had won Homecoming king,” Pope said. “I was just like, ‘Do you have nothing better to do than protest a high school a year later?”

Now, two years after the protest, Pope is still laughing. The Phelps family began Supreme Court hearings for the case of Snyder vs. Phelps on Oct. 17. Pope thinks that the group is “ridiculous” and finds it funny that they are finally presented with an opportunity to lose.

The legal issue up for debate in the trial is whether a protest at the funeral of Matthew Snyder, a Marine killed in Iraq, invaded on personal rights or was protected under the First Amendment. According to the attorney for the Snyder family, Sean Summers, the protest was defamation and an invasion of privacy. Margie Phelps, daughter of Fred Phelps and attorney, believes that their actions are just; that they’re protected by freedom of speech and religious expression.

James Orr is an attorney of 25 years in the Kansas City metropolitan area and thinks the case will deal with personal issues more than anything else.

“The lawsuit was for an invasion of personal rights, so that would cast it in a different perspective,” Orr said. “For instance, it’s one thing if you want to go to city hall and complain about something they’ve done, that’s your right. But if you want to go to your neighbor’s yard and complain about something he’s done, that’s a different issue.”

In the past, the Westboro Baptist Church has been protected under the First Amendment; they’ve even released statements on their website saying that “to deny us our First Amendment rights is to declare to the world that America is a nation of sodomite hypocrites.” The Amendment has given them the right to picket various institutions they see as morally unsound.

“The First Amendment generally lets people speak their minds,” Orr said. “Even if it’s offensive – actually some people would argue especially if it’s offensive – since bland speech doesn’t really need any protection. If you say ‘have a nice day’ to someone, nobody really cares one way or the other.”

At East, the church has not garnered very much respect. In a recent Harbinger survey of 100 East students, 94 percent disapprove of the points made by the church. Additionally, 94 percent hope he loses in court and 86 percent think he doesn’t deserve to protest.

The overriding issue with the church – the one that they’re in court for – is protests at military funerals. Junior Tyler Germann’s father currently is serving in the middle East and has been for two years. Germann believes that the Phelps “don’t really understand what soldiers are doing to protect millions of people in the country.” He thinks the group takes for granted the fact that they live in the states too.

Germann sympathizes with the Snyders and can’t even imagine how he would react if put in their position.

“I don’t think I could [handle it] without getting really mad and going over there and punching them in the face,” Germann said. “I don’t think I could control myself I would be so mad at them.”

In addition to protesting soldiers’ funerals, the Phelps picket places and events associated with homosexuality, as they did with East in 2008. In the forthcoming months they have scheduled protests to multiple productions of “The Laramie Project,” a play about the 1998 murder of University of Wyoming gay student Matthew Shepard. According to Westboro Baptist’s website, “Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for eleven years, with eternity left to go on his sentence.”

Junior Patrick Riggin came out as openly gay when he was in eighth grade and does not agree with the stance of the church. He feels they’re “protesting something that doesn’t need to be protested” and in turn “pissing off an entire country.” Even though he tries to not pay them any attention, the words and views asserted by the Phelps have an emotional effect on him.

“I think [their protests] are very effective, I feel it; it’s basically saying that some higher power doesn’t like me and that I’m doomed to a life of fire and brimstone,” Riggin said. “It’s just a scary thought to think that someone has it out for me and hasn’t even met me.”

Senior Angela Clem attended the East protest as a sophomore and didn’t really know anything about the church at the time. She thought their protesters were shocking, “especially with all the little kids protesting,” she said. She was particularly baffled with the reasoning behind the protest.

“I don’t really follow his logic,” Clem said. “I don’t really know how he can go from not supporting gay rights, to God hating all soldiers.”

In “The Most Hated Family in America,” a documentary on BBC, the Phelps express that the cause of their hatred boils down to them believing that by protesting, they are warning the nation of the wrath of God. And for the most part, God’s wrath comes from homosexuals, those who support homosexuals and honoring dead soldiers.

Tom Are is the senior Pastor at Village Presbyterian Church who credits his becoming a preacher to the kind, compassionate people he’s met along the way. In his opinion, the church’s views do not reflect ideals of Christianity.

“I think people’s faith are most consistent with what God wants from us when we are kind and loving to each other,” Are said. “And not when we speak hatred.”

Are was well aware of the protesting at East two years ago and thinks that people there on that day who go to church were probably “embarrassed by the ugliness of the display.” He believes that most people who go to church – excluding the Phelps – seek to be kind, just and gracious to the community. He thinks the real problem is their interpretation of the Bible.

“I think they read a really narrow and ideologically-driven reading of the Bible,” Are said. “But the reading is not informed by the kind of life and attitude that was demonstrated in Jesus Christ.”

Currently, 48 states have laws enacted minimizing picketing and other forms of disruptive activity near funeral sites. This includes Kansas, who was among the first to put it into law and a state that is backing Snyder in his case. Kansas Attorney General Steve Six said during a press conference that “you have a right in this country as a private person to simply be left alone.”

The final verdict of Snyder vs. Phelps will be released in 2011. If ruled in the Snyder family’s favor, it will mark a permanent end to the Phelps organized pickets at funerals – a decision that Snyder wants to be made so other families won’t have to go through what he went through, according to a report on CNN.

Even though Pope has learned to not take Phelps attacks too personally, he feels that the WBC deserves to lose for once.

“There’s a difference between freedom to protest and viciously attacking people verbally and causing so much pain that some commit suicide,” Pope said. “It’s sad to say, but in the end I hope they get a notch in the losing bar.”