44 Facts About Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps's father was a railroad policeman for the Columbus and Greenville Railway and a devout Methodist; his mother was a homemaker.

Catherine Fred Phelps died of esophageal cancer in 1935 at the age of 28.

Fred Phelps was a member of Phi Kappa, a high school social fraternity, president of the Young Peoples Department of Central United Methodist Church and was honored as the best drilled member of the Mississippi Junior State Guard, a unit similar to the Reserve Officer Training Corps.

Fred Phelps graduated from high school at 16 years old, ranking sixth in his graduating class of 213 students, and was the class orator at his commencement.

Fred Phelps moved to California and became a street preacher while attending John Muir College in Pasadena.

In October 1951, Fred Phelps met Margie Marie Simms in Arizona and married her in May 1952.

In 1954, Fred Phelps, his pregnant wife, and their newborn son moved to Topeka, Kansas, where he was hired by the East Side Baptist Church as an associate pastor.

Fred Phelps's vitriolic preaching alienated church leaders and most of the original congregation, who either returned to East Side Baptist or joined other congregations, leaving him with a small following consisting almost entirely of his own relatives and close friends.

Fred Phelps was forced to support himself selling vacuum cleaners, baby strollers, and insurance; later, some of his 13 children were reportedly compelled to sell candy door-to-door for several hours each day.

Fred Phelps earned a law degree from Washburn University in 1964, and founded the Fred Phelps Chartered law firm.

Fred Phelps took cases on behalf of African-American clients alleging racial discrimination by school systems, and a predominantly black American Legion post which had been raided by police, alleging racially based police abuse.

In 1986, Fred Phelps sued President Ronald Reagan over Reagan's appointment of a US ambassador to the Vatican, alleging this violated separation of church and state.

One of his sons, Nate, stated that Fred Phelps largely took civil rights cases for money rather than principle.

Fred Phelps was not satisfied with the hurt, pain, and damage he had visited on Carolene Brady.

Brady obtained sworn, signed affidavits from those eight people in question, all of whom said that Fred Phelps had never contacted them and that they had no reason to testify against Brady.

On July 20,1979, Fred Phelps was permanently disbarred from practicing law in the state of Kansas, although he continued to practice in federal courts.

In 1989, the complaint was settled; Fred Phelps agreed to stop practicing law in Federal court permanently, and two of his children were suspended for a period of six months and one year, respectively.

Fred Phelps described himself as an Old School Baptist, and stated that he held to all five points of Calvinism.

Fred Phelps particularly highlighted John Calvin's doctrine of unconditional election, the belief that God has elected certain people for salvation before birth, and limited atonement, the belief that Christ only died for the elect, and condemns those who believe otherwise.

Fred Phelps opposed such common Baptist practices as Sunday school meetings, Bible colleges and seminaries, and multi-denominational crusades.

Fred Phelps condemned large church leaders, such as Robert Schuller and Jerry Falwell, as well as all Catholics.

In 2001, Fred Phelps estimated that the WBC had held 40 pickets a week for the previous 10 years.

Margie Phelps, one of Fred Phelps' children, represented the Westboro Baptist Church.

Fred Phelps targeted the Joseph Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts, center of the David Parker controversy.

In 2006, in the aftermath of the West Nickel Mines School shooting, where five Amish girls were murdered, Fred Phelps mocked the shooting, saying that it had been caused by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's criticism of Westboro.

Fred Phelps further planned a protest at the funeral for the five girls murdered, but called it off, opting to spread their messages on a local radio station instead.

Fred Phelps continued picketing funerals and memorials for victims of mass shootings during the late 2000s, including the plan to picket the memorial for two victims of the Northern Illinois University shooting in 2008, which was countered by a preacher who hosted a seminar against Fred Phelps' views.

Fred Phelps' followers have repeatedly protested the University of Kansas School of Law's graduation ceremonies.

Shirley Phelps-Roper says that, in the late 1980s, Fred Phelps claimed to have witnessed a homosexual attempting to lure her then five-year-old son Joshua into some shrubbery.

Fred Phelps ran in Kansas Democratic Party primaries five times, but never won.

Fred Phelps supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic Party presidential primary election.

Fred Phelps stated that he supported Gore because of these earlier comments.

In 1996 Fred Phelps opposed Clinton's re-election because of the administration's support for gay rights; the Westboro congregation picketed a 1997 inaugural ball.

In 1997, Fred Phelps wrote a letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, praising his regime for being "the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets".

In 1994, Fred Phelps was convicted of disorderly conduct for verbal harassment, and received two suspended 30-day jail sentences.

Fred Phelps fought to be allowed to remain free until his appeals process went through.

Days away from being arrested and sent to prison, a judge ruled that Fred Phelps had been denied a speedy trial and that he was not required to serve any time.

In 1993, Fred Phelps appeared on a first-season episode of the talk show Ricki Lake, alleging that homosexuals and "anyone who carries the AIDS virus" deserved to die.

The Fred Phelps family was the subject of the 2007 TV program The Most Hated Family in America, presented on the BBC by Louis Theroux.

Fred Phelps appeared in A Union in Wait, a 2001 Sundance Channel documentary film about same-sex marriage, directed by Ryan Butler after Fred Phelps picketed Wake Forest Baptist Church at Wake Forest University over a proposed same-sex union ceremony.

Fred Phelps preached his final Sunday sermon on September 1,2013.

Fred Phelps said that Phelps had been excommunicated from the church in August 2013, and then moved into a house where he "basically stopped eating and drinking".

Fred Phelps died of natural causes shortly before midnight on March 19,2014, at the age of 84.

Fred Phelps had been reportedly suffering from some form of dementia in his final year, and started behaving irrationally.