On the Westboro Baptist Church, Redemption and A Positive Story About Arguing on the Internet

[Pogo]

I realize that I'm a little late to the party, but I just listened to a number of podcasts and videos featuring Megan Phelps-Roper. She's got quite a fascinating story.

I'll provide as much of a synopsis as I can - but if you've got some time, I highly recommend either her TED talk, which is about 15 minutes long, or her podcast interviews with Kevin Smith (about 2 hours) or Joe Rogan (3 hours).

She's the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, and was an active member of the Westboro Baptist Church for the first 27 years of her life.

From 2009 to 2012, when she left the church, she was the face of the church on social media. She ran the twitter accounts, engaged with people, and pushed the church's message of hatred to the outside world. Most of the responses she got were attacks, scorn and hatred - but her willingness to actually engage ended up spawning conversations with internet critics that lasted for years - which led in time to her exit from the church, and rejection of all of its doctrines.

Now she's married to one of her former twitter trolls.

It's rare that you hear a story like this about arguing on the internet. If you watch her TED talk, she makes a lot of arguments about how to interact with people that are particularly relevant to this board, as well as the political climate throughout the internet.

If you've got the time, here are the links:

TED Talk:


Kevin Smith's podcast:
Smodcast

Joe Rogan's podcast:

I thought the Joe Rogan guy was unnecessarily confrontational. As if he were trying to goad his subject into regressing to her former state. Specifically in the police protection for First Amendment segment. She held her own though. The TED talk was far more useful.

Rogan is Rogan, he's always like that. He defends his opinions, and he can be stubborn. He's a smart guy though, and I don't think he pushed her that hard.

Keep on mind, she's used to people pushing back against her opinions - that's the whole point of the story, I think. I don't think Rogan was rude or anything.

I agree he wasn't rude -- more at crude. He doesn't appear that smart, or much of an interviewer, and his point, at least in that section, was severely flawed. I think she deserves better.

But enough about that, it's not a thread about Joe Rogan.

I would have liked to hear more about what became of her sister. I remember a few years ago when they left. Wiki says two of their brothers have left as well.

I wondered about her sister as well - her name is Grace, you can google her.

According to her twitter feed, she's in Bangladesh, on the Myanmar border, helping Rohingya refugees.

I see where the two of them spoke to an ADL conference at Penn two years ago. Didn't find a video of it.

From that page:

>> The night before Megan and Grace Phelps-Roper left the church that had meant everything to them, relative after relative streamed into their rooms, crying. Megan Phelps-Roper was trying to pack when a beloved cousin walked in, stone-faced, and told her she was going to hell. <<​

--- reminded me of my own cousin's story about how when she was growing up her grandmother (and mine) would brush her hair while calmly informing my cousin that she would be going to hell because her mother married a Catholic.

Some of this stuff isn't as far away as we like to think.

 

[Gracie]

All it takes is one little lightbulb to go off over someone's head, and it can be a life changing experience. Saw it happen on a tv show once. Lady on stage vs lady in the audience. Lady on stage changed her ways and left her skinhead organization due to that lady in the audience. Baby steps. Good on both of those girls getting out when they could.

 

[impuretrash]

"Attack" is a negative. Doc didn't frame anything as a negative --- you plugged that in out of your own assumption.

I made an observation, not an attack. Doc is anti-free speech and pro-violent suppression of certain ideas. He's basically just as bad as the westboro baptist church.

 

[Gracie]

Relax, Impure. If you are not interested in hearing her story...then don't. Why derail?

 

[theDoctorisIn]

One of the aspects of the story that I find most interesting is how it reinforces the fact that nothing is ever as simple as we'd like it to be.

From the outside, Fred Phelps was the epitome of an inhuman monster - a collection of hatreds that completely overwhelm any possible humanity that he might have had.

But to Ms. Phelps-Roper, he's still Gramps - a human being that she loved her entire life, who read stories to her and bounced her on his knee. Even though she has separated herself from her family and rejected all of their doctrines, they're still her family - and she still loves them.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

If a woman who was raised amid the filth of Westboro could rise above it to actually do good, then why can't the rest of us? We've seen the same thing with alt right, kkk, nazi, fascism, white supremacy cults.

Yet another lib who sees nothing wrong with the antifa/BLM ideology (you only listed the "hate" groups you place on the "right" of the political spectrum).

 

[Pogo]

One of the aspects of the story that I find most interesting is how it reinforces the fact that nothing is ever as simple as we'd like it to be.

From the outside, Fred Phelps was the epitome of an inhuman monster - a collection of hatreds that completely overwhelm any possible humanity that he might have had.

But to Ms. Phelps-Roper, he's still Gramps - a human being that she loved her entire life, who read stories to her and bounced her on his knee. Even though she has separated herself from her family and rejected all of their doctrines, they're still her family - and she still loves them.

I also wonder, and didn't hear asked of her, what communications have been attempted over the last four years since they left. Family is deep, no matter what the perceived rift there has to be some kind of desire for reconnection on both sides.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

Relax, Impure. If you are not interested in hearing her story...then don't. Why derail?

Yeah. Relax, impure! You know Doc is ecstatic over David Horowitz abandoning radical communism an becoming a Constitutionalist.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

One of the aspects of the story that I find most interesting is how it reinforces the fact that nothing is ever as simple as we'd like it to be.

From the outside, Fred Phelps was the epitome of an inhuman monster - a collection of hatreds that completely overwhelm any possible humanity that he might have had.

But to Ms. Phelps-Roper, he's still Gramps - a human being that she loved her entire life, who read stories to her and bounced her on his knee. Even though she has separated herself from her family and rejected all of their doctrines, they're still her family - and she still loves them.

I also wonder, and didn't hear asked of her, what communications have been attempted over the last four years since they left. Family is deep, no matter what the perceived rift there has to be some kind of desire for reconnection on both sides.

They go into that in detail, actually.

She follows them on twitter, and tries to engage - although she's been blocked by most of them. She's called them, and tried to knock on the door, but they haven't responded to her, at least so far.

 

[impuretrash]

One of the aspects of the story that I find most interesting is how it reinforces the fact that nothing is ever as simple as we'd like it to be.

From the outside, Fred Phelps was the epitome of an inhuman monster - a collection of hatreds that completely overwhelm any possible humanity that he might have had.

But to Ms. Phelps-Roper, he's still Gramps - a human being that she loved her entire life, who read stories to her and bounced her on his knee. Even though she has separated herself from her family and rejected all of their doctrines, they're still her family - and she still loves them.

Maybe in your leftist bubble, people stop being human when they believe things you disagree with but reality doesn't work that way. I'm surprised it took an internet podcast to help you come to this conclusion.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Relax, Impure. If you are not interested in hearing her story...then don't. Why derail?

Yeah. Relax, impure! You know Doc is ecstatic over David Horowitz leaving abandoning radical communism an becoming a Constitutionalist.

If you don't want to discuss the topic, that's fine.

But go flame somewhere else, if you don't mind.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

One of the aspects of the story that I find most interesting is how it reinforces the fact that nothing is ever as simple as we'd like it to be.

From the outside, Fred Phelps was the epitome of an inhuman monster - a collection of hatreds that completely overwhelm any possible humanity that he might have had.

But to Ms. Phelps-Roper, he's still Gramps - a human being that she loved her entire life, who read stories to her and bounced her on his knee. Even though she has separated herself from her family and rejected all of their doctrines, they're still her family - and she still loves them.

Maybe in your leftist bubble, people stop being human when they believe things you disagree with but reality doesn't work that way. I'm surprised it took an internet podcast to help you come to this conclusion.

You just can't keep from digging yourself deeper, can you?

This thread isn't about you finding a way to attack me.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

For anyone who doesn't want to watch the video or listen to the podcasts, I found an article that discusses some of the story.

Conversion via Twitter