Editing Fred Phelps (section)

==Biography==
===Early Life (1929-1947)===
Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr. was born on November 13, 1929 in Meridian, Mississippi to Fred Wade Phelps, a railroad police officer, and Catherine Idalette Johnson, a homemaker. He had a younger sister named Martha-Jean, who had been estranged from for many years. When Phelps was five, his mother died of throat cancer, and he and sister were raised by his great-aunt, Irene Jordan. Fred Wade Phelps would soon re-marry, however.

Phelps was described as having a normal childhood, excelling at school and sports, being an Eagle Scout, and even graduating from high school at age sixteen. When Phelps was seventeen, he was ordained a minster after having a religious experience. He soon left home to preach and became estranged from his family.

===Adult Years (1947-1991)===
Phelps began attending colleges and Bible schools around the country. In 1951, Phelps was arrested for assaulting a man while preaching, and was even featured in Time Magazine. That same year, Phelps earned his Associate's Degree from John Muir College. He moved to Arizona in 1952, where met his wife, Margie M. Simms. The two soon married and had their first child, Fred Jr. in 1953. In 1954, the Phelps family moved to Topeka, Kansas. During this time, Phelps got a job as a co-pastor at Eastside Baptist Church. However, the congregation wasn't too happy with Phelps. He would tell the male members that they should beat their wives if they didn't obey them. The members of Eastside tried to get Phelps voted out of the church, but failed. In 1955, Phelps was made pastor of Eastside Baptist's new branch church, Westboro Baptist. Soon after the WBC was established, Phelps severed ties with Eastside. Several members from Eastside joined Westboro, but some left after Phelps killed a dog with a shotgun after it defecated on his lawn.

During this time Phelps and his wife would go on to have thirteen children. Soon, Phelps began to take interest in becoming a lawyer, and in 1962, he began attending Washburn University. Phelps graduated in 1964 with a degree in law and soon founded Phelps Chartered, a law firm. While he was a lawyer, Phelps took up several civil rights cases. Phelps also claims to have brought the cities' [[Jim Crow laws]] down. Because of racist attitudes towards blacks at the time, residents of Topeka would label the Phelps' family as "nigger lovers". According his estranged sons Mark and Nathan, Phelps was also a racist, and would sometimes use the initials, D.N. with certain clients, which would stand for "dumb nigger".<ref>[https://www.bet.com/article/1reiuc/the-unsurprising-racism-of-the-westboro-baptist-church Commentary: The Unsurprising Racism of the Westboro Baptist Church], ''Black Entertainment Television''</ref> In 1977, Phelps was disbarred for perjury, which involved him making false claims about women during a lawsuit, and in 1979, he has permanently disbarred in Kansas. His children, however, continue run the law firm for him, even after his death.

Soon however, Phelps began to grow more abusive towards his family. His estranged son Nathan recalls that his father would usually come home in a foul mood, and would take his anger out on his family. Phelps would beat his children with his fists, knees, a barber strap, and soon upgraded from the barber strap to a mattock handle.<ref name=abuse/>

Phelps' health also began to get worse too. He started to take prescription drugs, and gain a large amount of weight as well. After nearly dying of a drug overdose, Phelps decided to lose weight. He started to run marathons with his family, and gradually lost weight. But even here, the abuse continued, as Phelps would make his family run for up to ten miles a day, and if they beat him home after they were done running, he would abuse them. Phelps would also started to make his young children go around the Topeka area and make them sell candy in order to keep money flowing into the family. He would make the children go into dangerous parts of town such as the red-light district, where his son Jonathon was attacked by Prostitute. As usual, if the children didn't sell the amount of candy as expected, Phelps would beat them.

===Picketing Years (1991-2011)===

Phelps and the WBC began picketing around 1991, in order combat homosexual activities at Gage Park. Although the protests started out small, and gained little attention, the church soon began gaining attention nationwide, the most notable event being the funeral protest of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Around 2003, the WBC began to protest the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that they died for a doomed nation.<ref>[https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/His-church-was-bombed-and-now-he-protests-1175893.php His church was bombed, and now he protests funerals of the war dead], ''Seattle PI''</ref> Several laws were soon made to restrain the church protests. While not banning them from picketing outright, the laws passed made member keep a large distance from the funeral.

The church made headlines once again in 2006, when Albert Snyder, father of Matthew Snyder, a fallen Marine whose funeral the WBC picketed, sued Phelps and the church for invasion of privacy, emotional distress, and other charges. Synder was soon awarded $10.9 million in damages. In Steptember 2009, the church brought the case before an appeals court, who ruled in favor of the Phelps', and Synder was forced to pay the court costs.<ref>[https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/03/06/-Snyder-vs-Phelps-Supreme-Court-protects-hateful-speech-near-funeral/58271299402300/ Snyder vs. Phelps: Supreme Court protects hateful speech near funeral], ''United Press International''</ref> In 2010, based on another appeal, the case was soon brought to the Supreme Court. Margie Phelps, one of Pastor Phelps' daughters, represented the church, and in 2011, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC 8-1. This case brought about much media attention, and many were disappointed by the outcome.

===Final Years and Death (2011-2014)===
{{Quote|I, personally, do not see anything wrong with hating Fred Phelps! I don't see anything wrong with taking joy in the fact that we no longer have to share a planet with that bigoted piece of useless, subhuman fucking garbage! Some people want to take it a step further and pick at Fred's funeral. I would never pick at his funeral because, to me, that would be too much of an acknowledgement that he ever even existed in the first place. You know how I'm gonna commemorate his death? The next time I take a shit, before I even wipe my ass, I'm gonna sit up and look down at the turds in the bowl and I'm gonna say "Goodbye Fred!" and I'm gonna fucking flush him away and that will be the last time I ever even think about the name Fred Phelps! Good fucking riddance and cheers!|YouTuber TJ Kirk delighting in Fred Phelps' death.}}Even after the lawsuit, the church continues to hold daily pickets, but Phelps had started to grow absent from them, mostly due his old age and health issues in his younger years. In recent years, the church has shown small signs of falling apart, due to fact that several members, mostly younger ones, have either left or were kicked out. Phelps also began to give his sermons less often, on Sunday's, usually letting one of the male members finish for him. In September 2013, Phelps preached his final sermon.

On March 16th, 2014, it was confirmed by Phelps' estranged son Nathan in a Facebook post that his father was in poor health, stating that he was on the "edge of death", and had been relocated to a hospital in Topeka. It was later officaly confirmed by church spokesman [[Steve Drain]] that the reports were true. Nathan also stated that his father had been excommunicated from the church in August 2013. Ironically, his excommunication came as the result of one of one of Phelps' few attempts to do something arguably benevolent, when the church's new board of elders, headed by Drain, turned on him after an attempt on Phelps' part to intervene on behalf of his daughter [[Shirley Phelps-Roper]], who had been all but removed from the church herself.

According to family members, Phelps died of undisclosed health problems shortly before midnight on March 19th, 2014. Family members also stated that there would be no funeral for Phelps, due to the fact that the church views funerals as "worshiping the dead", making it unclear what will happen to him, and Westboro Baptist Church, now that he has died.

In June 2014, Zacharias Phelps-Roper, son of Shirley Phelps-Roper, allegedly made a claim to the Planting Peace organization that his grandfather, the late Fred Phelps, may have had a change of heart regarding homosexual people. According to Phelps-Roper, his grandfather stood outside of his church building and expressed his support for the Equality House within earshot of his congregation on the day that he was excommunicated from Westboro. It is believed that he had developed this sense of empathy after he had discovered that his wife was diagnosed with a serious illness.<ref>[https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/state/2014/03/17/elders-excommunicate-phelps-after-power-struggle-call-kindness-within-church/987276007/ Elders excommunicate Phelps after power struggle, call for kindness within church], ''The Topeka Capital-Journal''</ref>