Topic: Former Westboro Baptist Church Leader Fred Phelps Near Death (Read 727 times)

Those people have a long way to go to wake up.

I am personally acquainted with some of them and had first met Fred about 40 years ago when he was still at least some sort of decent civil rights lawyer.

They are a very strange and dangerous lot; most of the children are lawyers and will sue you at the drop of a hat.

My $.02.

If only he were a vampire, then when he dies, the entire WBC would wake up and realize the error of their ways and stop being shitty human beings.

I think it'd be better if people didn't. Don't stoop to their level. I wish people and the media would just ignore them like you should anybody who has such terrible and hateful opinions.


Yeah, I mean why even bother hating the guy? He's just a sad old delusional homophobe who believes in nonsense.

http://cjonline.com/news/2014-03-20/shirley-phelps-roper-wbc-founder-fred-phelps-dead

Shirley Phelps-Roper: WBC founder Fred Phelps dead

Phone queries to WBC, members go to voice mail; one member hangs up on reporter

Posted: March 20, 2014 - 10:33am

" By Steve Fry
The Capital-Journal

Pastor Fred Waldron Phelps Sr., founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, died late Wednesday, a daughter of Phelps confirmed Thursday morning.

Reached by phone in Topeka, Shirley Phelps-Roper confirmed her father had died at Midland Care Hospice.

About 7 p.m. Wednesday, angry adult voices, including some cursing, could be heard in the vicinity of the church and homes of Westboro Baptist Church members. Many WBC members live on adjacent streets within sight of the church. The dispute outside didn't last long.

Phelps-Roper politely said it was "none of your business" to a reporter's questions of whether members of Phelps' family had been present when he died and whether a funeral service would be conducted for her father.

Phelps family members who have left Westboro Baptist Church weren't allowed to visit the ill Phelps while he was in hospice care, according to former church members. Of the 13 adult children of Fred Phelps Sr., four have split from the church as well as approximately 20 adult grandchildren of Phelps.

"There will not be a funeral," Margie Jean Phelps, the oldest daughter of Fred Phelps Sr., later said during an interview with WIBW 580 AM. "The funeral (in general) has become the number one idol of Americans.

The church is well known for picketing the funerals of American troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Fred Phelps Sr. said was tied to American attitudes about gays. The WBC picketing of a Marine's funeral spurred a lawsuit culminating in a legal battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Her father's "message and life was to fear and obey God," Margie Phelps said. "Nothing else matters." Society is doomed if it doesn't turn away from same-sex marriage and sodomy, she said.

"The world-wide media has been has been in a frenzy during the last few days, gleefully anticipating the death of Fred Waldron Phelps Sr.," an unsigned statement issued by the church said. "It has been an unprecedented, hypocritical, vitriolic explosion of words.

"Do they vainly hope for the death of his body? People die – that is the way of all flesh," the church said. "The death of Fred Phelps’ body, a man who preached a plain faithful doctrine to an ever darkening world, is nothing but a vain, empty, hypocritical hope for you."

The church statement added it hasn't undergone any power struggles.

Fred Phelps Sr. had been in hospice care with an unknown illness. Church spokesman Steve Drain said Feb. 14 to a Topeka Capital-Journal reporter that Phelps was “healthy" but wouldn't put Phelps on the phone as a church spokeswoman had done in the past.

"He has a couple things going on," Drain said Sunday but he declined to elaborate on what his illnesses were.

"The source that says he's near death is not well informed," Drain said Sunday, which was three days before Phelps died.

On Wednesday, phone lines at the church normally staffed to handle news media queries had voice mails instructing callers to email questions to the church. When called, the phones of several other church members immediately rolled into message mode.

Another member of the family hung up when The Topeka Capital-Journal reporter identified himself.

Megan Phelps, who with her sister, Grace Phelps, left WBC in 2012, tweeted her feelings about the death of her grandfather, whom she called Gramps.

"One way or another, he's at peace," Megan Phelps said. "There's only heaven or peaceful nothingness. That's what I think. (Rest in peace) RIP, Gramps. I love you forever."

Megan Phelps thoughts also extended to recipients of Fred Phelps Sr.'s controversial picketing and preaching.

"I'm so sorry for the harm he caused, that we all caused.," Megan Phelps said. "But he could be so kind and wonderful. I wish you all could have seen that, too."

"I understand those who don't mourn his loss, but I'm thankful for those who see that 'an eye for an eye' leaves the whole world blind," she said.

Her sister, Grace Phelps, posted a blog to her grandfather on Monday, signing it, "Your Gracie."

"I love you. I miss you," Grace Phelps wrote. "My heart aches to see how you’ve been laid waste in the media by our own family."

"I’m sorry people reflect back the same hate and judgment that WBC delivers," she wrote. "I’m sorry you got trapped into a deluded way of thinking to the point that you were willing to hurt other people and yourself in order to serve a God out of fear."

On Sunday, son Nate Phelps, who fled the church 37 years ago, said Fred Phelps Sr. was excommunicated in August 2013 from the church he founded for advocating more kindness toward its members.On Sunday, Drain refused to discuss whether Phelps had been excommunicated from the church he founded.

"We don't discuss our internal church dealings with anybody," Drain said. "It's only because of his notoriety that you are asking."

Drain said the church doesn't have a specific leader other than Jesus Christ. The church has an eight-member board of elders, all male, who make church decisions."

Why would you let him have that much of an effect on you?

I hope he dies slowly and painfully.

I would try to feel sympathy for him, but I really can't.

Him and his 'church' hurt the feelings of more than one group of people. From Americans to foreigners, soldiers to homosexuals, and almost EVERY religion. Including people outside of their church. Who think differently then they did.

I hope somebody pickets his funeral, or the church does. Isn't that what they love doing?

I'm happy Anonymous did the 2011 and 2010 protests towards them. (I think they were either 2011 and 2010, or 2011 and 2012. All you have to do is look them up.) I don't care how disgusting people thought they were, they deserved it.

And wow, I hope HE deserves it too.

One idiot less in the world, hopefully.

http://cjonline.com/news/2014-03-16/wbc-spokesman-said-fred-phelps-sr-was-healthy-month-he-entered-hospice

"WBC spokesman said Fred Phelps Sr. was 'healthy' a month before he entered hospice"

"Pastor Fred Waldron Phelps Sr., founder of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, is a patient at a hospice with unspecified health problems, a church spokesman confirmed Sunday.

That contrasts with a month earlier on Feb. 14 when church spokesman Steve Drain twice told a Topeka Capital-Journal reporter that Phelps was "healthy."

But unlike calls in the past several years, Drain declined a reporter's request in February to put Phelps on the phone.

In the past, Phelps would take the phone to chat awhile, sometimes chuckling because he understood the purpose of the call was to check on his health in the face of rumors he was ill or dead.

Drain said Phelps had done "his bit" in talking to reporters in earlier years and had passed the torch to younger church members.

After Phelps was voted out of Westboro Baptist Church this past summer, he was moved out of the church and into a house, where he was watched to ensure he wouldn’t harm himself, a son estranged from the church said Sunday.

Phelps eventually stopped eating and drinking, and on Sunday, he was near death, son Nate Phelps said in a Facebook posting. The information also is based on an email sent by Nate Phelps to a Capital-Journal reporter.

"(Fred) is at Midland Hospice House where, as of yesterday (Friday), he is comfortable without the respiratory difficulty that he was having the day before and is unresponsive," Nate Phelps wrote, quoting a message sent to him.

For many years, Fred Phelps Sr. and his wife, Margie Marie Phelps, lived in an upper floor of the church.

On Sunday morning, the church and surrounding streets where many of the members live were quiet.

Drain declined to comment Sunday on a report that Fred Phelps Sr. has been excommunicated from the conservative church, known for its controversial anti-gay stance that he founded in the 1950s.

Drain also said Westboro Baptist Church doesn't have a new leader of the church because it doesn't have a designated leader.

Nate Phelps, who broke away from the church 37 years ago, has posted on his Facebook page that his father was excommunicated from the church in August 2013 and is "now on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka."

Nate Phelps made the Facebook post around midnight Saturday. He is one of five sons of Fred Phelps Sr.

Drain was asked Sunday morning whether Fred Phelps Sr. had been excommunicated.

"We don't owe any talk to you about that," Drain said. "We don't discuss our internal church dealings with anybody. It's only because of his notoriety that you are asking."

However, a second Phelps brother estranged from Westboro Baptist Church confirmed Sunday morning that Fred Phelps Sr. is in poor health and has been excommunicated.

"Just a quick note to assure you the information you wrote and published this morning is accurate," Mark Phelps emailed to The Capital-Journal at 10:30 a.m. "I do not know anything more than you know, at this time, but what you wrote I know to be true, personally, just as Nathan (Nate Phelps) knows to be true also."

As for who is the leader of Westboro Baptist Church, there is no head of the church, Drain said.

"The church of Jesus Christ doesn't have a head," Drain said. "The Lord Jesus Christ is our head."

Multiple elders have preached at Westboro Baptist Church for some time, Drain said. Anecdotal reports of people who have observed preaching at the church confirm that.

"For a very long time, we haven't been organized in the way you think," Drain said, referring to the church having a defined leader.

Drain confirmed Sunday that Fred Phelps Sr. is a patient in Midland Care Hospice.

Phelps has been a patient in the hospice for "not too long," Drain said.

"He has a couple things going on," Drain said when asked what Phelps' illness was but declined to elaborate.

"The source that says he's near death is not well informed," Drain said.

On Nate Phelps' Facebook page, Nate Phelps posted: "I've learned that my father, Fred Phelps Sr., pastor of the 'God Hates Fags' Westboro Baptist Church, was ex-communicated from the 'church' back in August of 2013. He is now on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka, Kansas.

"I'm not sure how I feel about this. Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made.

"I feel sad for all the hurt he's caused so many. I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I'm bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes."

Fred Phelps Sr., an ordained minister who started Westboro Baptist Church in 1955, was known early in his legal career as an award-winning civil rights lawyer.

However, after his disbarment by the Kansas Supreme Court in 1979 and the surrender of his license to practice law in federal courts in 1989, Phelps became known for his crusade against homosexuals, marked by picket lines, the mass distribution of facsimiles and a multitude of lawsuits."

Good old Fred is the creator of the church's slogan, "God hates fags!"

These are the people who picket funerals: