Finding Love in Hate

In April of 2013, the news about the Boston Marathon had completely shocked the country. Only a few days later, I remember reading a news article that shocked me even more. A small church in Topeka, Kansas, was planning on protesting the funeral of one of the victims of the bombing. After I read this, I thought to myself, “Someone just lost their life in a terrorist attack, what could they possibly be protesting?” That’s when I looked up the church. Their name is The Westboro Baptist Church. My first knowledge of this church was from google images and YouTube. There were pictures and videos of people holding signs saying, “God hates fags,” “AIDS cures fags,” “Thank God for 9/11.” This didn’t make sense to me. How could a group claim to be a church, yet wish death upon others? This prompted me to learn more about the church and their hateful antics. Since I’ve been passionate about this for years, I figured that this project would be the perfect opportunity to delve even deeper into the minds of The Westboro Baptist Church.

In 1955, Fred Phelps, a Pastor and civil rights attorney, founded The Westboro Baptist Church. The church is an independent Primitive Baptist Church, who strongly associates with Calvinist ideology. They believe they are part of the elect, and that only the elect will be saved by God on judgement day. Therefore, God hates the non-elect. This drives them to hate everyone who is non-elect. So basically, everyone except for themselves. The church mainly consists of Fred Phelps’ family members, including some of his 13 children, over 50 of his grandchildren, and some great grandchildren. The church began picketing in 1991, after city officials ignored his complaints of a park near his town that was a meeting place for homosexuals. Since then, they’ve participated in over 33,000 sidewalk demonstrations against homosexuals, veterans, America, and Jewish people. They believe that every tragedy that humans face is a result of God punishing us for tolerating homosexuals. The church is not evangelistic, and their only purpose is to warn Americans of God’s wrath. (All of the information in this paragraph was found at https://www.watchman.org/ProfileWestboro.pdf)

In Rev. Elizabeth Edman’s article, “’Queer Virtue:’ What LGBTQ People Know About Life and Love and How It Can Revitalize Christianity” (2016), Edman explains how she believes that incorporating sexuality into the Christian faith can be extremely beneficial. She says that it can be harmful to keep your sexuality and your faith separate, because they are two big parts of who you are. Christians can learn valuable lessons from exploring their faith and their sexuality in conjunction. Edman says that the LGBTQ community has a very strong “queer moral code” (6). She makes the claim that the community leads with this code very well, however, the church hardly ever plays the role of a leader (10). They often times are following another moral code separate from their own. Because of this, she considers herself to be more “queer” than “Christian”. One’s sexuality can influence one’s faith, and in turn, make both of those aspects of their lives stronger. The church can learn from the LGBTQ community’s strong sense of leadership and independence. These two communities share one major thing in common, and that is “love.” Love in the LGBTQ community means that we can love whoever we want to. Love in the church represents commitment. Because these two communities share the common bond of love, they can use their differing meanings of love to complement one another. One of the responses in my interviews describes this very well. When I asked if she combines her sexuality and her faith, she said yes, because God wants to love all of her, and not parts of her. Because of her sexuality, she loves who she wants to love. Because of her faith, she believes that God is committed to her through his love, no matter what. Edman states that applying a queer lens to the Christian faith is positive. Her idea of applying a “queer lens” to progressive Christianity can expand our personal and corporate faith (11). Edman’s book can be found here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/529950/queer-virtue-by-the-reverend-elizabeth-m-edman/9780807059081/

In Krista McQueeney’s article, “’We are God’s Children, Y’all:’ Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Lesbian and Gay-Affirming Congregations” (2009), she interviews people who identify as gay, lesbian, and bisexual, to seek a better understanding of how they interpret Christian beliefs to include those who identify as anything other than straight. McQueeney states near the beginning of the article, “Homosexuality carries a heavy stigma within Christianity, placing lesbians, gays, and bisexuals on lesser ground than their straight counterparts” (152). In Yvette Flunder’s “Healing Oppression Sickness” (2015), she describes the idea of oppression sickness as the oppressed being infected by the oppressor. The oppressor excludes certain people that do not fall into the white heterosexual Christian zone, meaning that those who do not fit these standards on are on the “edge of society.” In the eyes of The Westboro Baptist Church, the LGBTQIA+ community is far along the edges of society. So much that they should not even be considered a part of society. The way I see it after reading the Flunder article, is that the church is infecting the LGBTQIA+ community with their oppression sickness by claiming that God wants nothing to do with them, and that they are terrible people who are not even considered to be children of God. McQueeney’s article can be found here: https://watermark.silverchair.com/socpro56-0151.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAbowggG2BgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggGnMIIBowIBADCCAZwGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQM3LVUSfmvqSxEKzcRAgEQgIIBbceVj4C8gw1E89Xs1MOXIVtXPqTtEqt--JRHSrDH_u7sKf9sekQ_euh7-0jvYfxcZS5behqI8ShYKjq8TdQo_KtnJr-URmjyKCWTq8ow3A0Z6c3QGIR9_Zauxmvk3fRJ9W36pM3G4d1IqXADgLca5pl5402F7X8MVQ_AjN0Mdazt7CATa8z4F68HGiN_l9Nl1yEJoXSy9mL-YbnTILCbcNPVfstpZgsa4rUn_NSWSlNLINwHl6q_5jPKrdwx0C_4sJgup253JJWwlWsKl7lk9V5D7xkNMQ3RErj0C2xRUINZO8t8435ojjb2P00kWT8r_TQrhNm4fFQwZxhGbbn2fs11MDPOxhNrbr_PTIVDEKGdmBShNMXJF3kVtIJgL-GOTZ3upEdmkCbG42MKZ0TmgvLY2x-Y7KElGQusMvfKLM__DjVDRdjeQfz6eBAMyYwYkj1llh0v54DFAIxO6H5DxjGsTCq41EwFmwXywRQR, and Flunder’s article can be found here: http://0-www.jstor.org.libus.csd.mu.edu/stable/j.ctt13x0q0q.16?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

The Westboro Baptist Church is a church that would be strongly against the addition of LGBTQIA+ people in their faith. They firmly believe that LGBTQIA+ people mean nothing to God, simply because of their sexuality. If what The Westboro Baptist Church claims about homosexuals going straight to hell is true, then why do some homosexuals believe it is so important that their faith revolves around their sexuality, or vice-versa? The Edman, McQueeney, and Flunder articles inspired me to ask a specific question to the people I interviewed, about whether or not they incorporate their sexuality into their religious practices. It also made me want to ask the question “Have you ever felt as though God hated you?” to challenge the Westboro Baptist Church’s ideology. For the sake of simplicity and remaining anonymous, I’ve given the people I interviewed fake names. Here is a brief description of each person based on what they have told me:

Lisa- Lisa is a bisexual and asexual female who was raised, and continues identify as, Lutheran. She frequently attends church camps and plans on becoming ordained after college.

Anne- Anne is a bisexual female who left the Catholic Church, because she believed that God would hate her for liking females. However, she eventually returned to the church.

Chris- Chris is a Protestant, gay, male youth pastor, who is currently co-president for a United Methodist group on his college campus.

I asked my interviewees if they believe it’s important to tie their sexuality into their religious practices so that they are one, or if they believe they should keep those two parts of their lives separate. Lisa responded by saying, “I think that it’s impossible to truly keep them separate. I am a Christian. I’m also queer. I can’t separate them, and being the two to some people is seen as contradictory (both in the LGBTQIA+ community and in the church community.) So I had to think about how I could be both. And Overall, I think the LGBTQIA+ community is the epitome of what the church is supposed to be as well- both are all about love. Love thy neighbor. Love who you want. It’s just very similar messages. There were points where I struggled to believe in God themself but I never thought God hated me.” This response reminded me of the Edman article, when she mentioned how the concept of “love” is important to both the church, and the LGBTQ community. When Lisa was at a crossroads with her faith and her sexuality, she was able to find the common bond of “love” that gave her hope. Anne answered my question by saying, “I keep those two parts separate. I don’t ever feel the need to bring up my sexuality in conversation (with anyone, not just Catholics). But if we are talking about LGBTQ and Catholicism I will bring up that I’m bi and still go to church and pray and all that good stuff. When I was in high school, I struggled with my sexuality and my relationship with God. I started thinking differently after attending a retreat my senior year of high school. I loved it so much and was surrounded by classmates who were also coming out and I realized I could have a healthy relationship with god and still be Catholic because regardless of the church doctrine as a whole. My church has been extremely accepting.” I also had a great response from Chris, who had similar ideas to Edman. He said, “I very much combine the two. I try to incorporate LGBT+ activism into my faith all of the time, partially to show the church that LGBT+ people are no different in God’s eyes but mainly to show LGBT+ people that there are safe places in the church where they can explore their faith. My faith is based on love and LGBT+ inclusion is an area in the church that needs a lot of help with love so that’s where I’m called. Hatred has always been a human concept for me. The idea of God hating God’s creation has never been something possible in my mind.” Like Edman, Chris actually holds some sort of position of power in the church, even though it may not be as big. His opinion on the matter is much similar; the Christian community flourishes when the LGBTQ community feels welcomed and included.

Immediately after I decided on this topic for my project, I remember the Moon article from class, “Beyond the Dichotomy: Six Religious Views of Homosexuality” (Moon 2014). In her article, Moon lays out six different religious views of homosexuality. One of these views is considered to be the worst of all six, and that is the “God Hates Fags” view. This could not be any more similar to The Westboro Baptist Church’s beliefs. Every day, they proudly carry signs that say this exact phrase on them. Their website is even called www.GodHatesFags.com. In the FAQ section of the church’s website (http://www.godhatesfags.com/faq.html), they make the claim that they love homosexuals so much, and that is why they feel they have to warn them. If they love them so much, why does it come across in such a hateful way? (Moon’s article can be found here: http://0-eds.b.ebscohost.com.libus.csd.mu.edu/eds/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=36bc8b2a-139b-41ab-8094-ceb8c30f833b%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=97015154&db=qth)

This encouraged me to try to get a better understanding of where they come from. For this, I turned to Megan Phelps-Roper, who is one of the granddaughters of Fred Phelps. Megan was a part of The Westboro Baptist Church for almost her entire life. She began picketing when she was only five years old, before she could even read what the signs said. She shared the same view of homosexuals that the rest of her church did. In 2013, after months of contemplation, she left the church. Since then, she’s been doing interviews on TV programs, radio shows, and even did a TED talk. In some of these interviews, she explains where the church is coming from when they say that they love homosexuals so much they feel the need to warn them. In an interview with Sarah Silverman on I Love You, America, Megan says, “We did a lot of things that seemed hateful to most people. We believed that it was loving, we thought that loving our neighbor was going to warn them the consequences of their sins. But we did things like celebrating 9/11 and hurricane Katrina, and every sort of human tragedy. We protested funerals. We did it because we believed that was the definition of love. We thought we were loving our neighbor with those signs. So, ‘God hates fags’ was a way of loving our neighbor.”

I wanted to do my own experiment to see if hateful words, such as the ones that The Westboro Baptist Church exclaims, can actually help an LGBTQIA+ individual or hurt them even more. I asked my interviewees if they have ever experience that sort of hateful rhetoric in their lives. I was curious to see how it affected them. Since not all of my participants have experienced this, I will only include the ones that have. Here is a brief description:

Shane- Shane is a transgender male, who was raised Catholic and now identifies as straight. He grew up in a household that was extremely homophobic.

Marissa- Marissa is a lesbian, Catholic female who grew up in the foster system and lived in strict religious households.

When I asked if they have ever experienced anyone who used hateful slurs like “God hates Fags,” Shane responded, “I got kicked out of a Christian school that constantly spoke about gays going to hell, and it was because they suspected that I was gay. Every year at gay pride, there are people holding signs saying ‘gay sex is sin’ or ‘gays are going to hell.’ My own father would tell me that gay people should be wiped off the face of the earth. Senior year of high school, I told him that I was gay. He disowned me, and my family hasn’t spoken to me in four years. I turned to Satanism for a while and went down a dark road to depression.” Marissa replied with, “When I went to church as a kid, I was told that gay people went to hell. I was taught that they should all be shamed and changed, and that they were sick, demented people. I attended gay pride for the first time in 2014 and was slandered and hated by people holding signs telling me and everyone else that we are all going to hell. Being told I was going to hell made me hate myself for a long time. I abused my body in many ways trying to ‘turn straight,’ because that’s what I was taught to do.” The responses from both of these individuals supported my idea that hateful rhetoric, such as the slurs that the WBC spews, are extremely hurtful to members of the LGBTQIA+ community. They can only hurt them more. In many cases, it turns community members away from the faith.

This project was an eye-opening experience for me. Even though I am a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, there was still a lot that I hadn’t learned. Through my interviews, I was able to learn so much about those that share different experiences than me growing up. It was evident through some of my responses that The Westboro Baptist Church and their hateful rhetoric does not “help” those who identify as anything other than straight, even though they believe they are coming from a place of love. Actually, they only continue to hurt them more. The LGBTQIA+ community and the Christian community need to be more willing to listen, and engage in civil dialogue, before they spew out hateful slurs. From what I have researched, both sides come from a place of love, so it is possible to find common ground.