How Did Fred Phelps Go From Civil Rights Hero to Fag Basher?
Nate Phelps, son the son Fred, says his family’s Westboro Baptist Church engages in a “twisted thought process.” It’s enough to make you think Nate doesn’t approve of his father’s creation! “Estranged” is perhaps too light a word to describe Nate’s relationship with his anti-gay family, known for their performance art. In what’s billed as his first television interview, Nate tells Peter Klein of Canada’s The Standard that growing up under Fred was all “about the religion,” complete with “corporal punishments” for “anything [including] not paying attention in church.” That includes Fred beating his wife (Nate’s mother). The beatings would sometimes “last for hours.” Then there was the part where he forced his seven- and eight-year-old kids to running marathon distances. Nate says he grew up “terrified of” his father. But might, at the end of all of this, there be reason to believe Fred Phelps himself is a giant homo? Likely not, says Nate. “I don’t have anything that I can specifically
