Why We Should Mourn Fred Phelps

Like a funhouse mirror for American society, Fred Phelps reflected and distorted American ideals in ways that were uncomfortable and even embarrassing. At news of his death on March 19, however, joyous tweets and blog posts were abound. Catapulted into a sort of stardom, Phelps became the quintessential representation of the most extreme fringes of the right. One need not repeat the now infamous protests wrought by his church, with his own children as well as those of his congregants holding signs blazoned with hate speech. “God hates [Insert anyone not straight, white, cisgender or part of his church here]” soon became inspiration for satire around the world. Although his church lambasted many different communities, Phelps held a special opprobrium for the LGBTQ+ community. While people on the left may find his beliefs on gay rights to be extreme, 38 percent of Americans still oppose sexual relations between two individuals of the same sex. Using language so strong, one who supports equal rights regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity couldn’t help but imagine that he was a talented performance actor trying to make a social critique about bigotry both implicit and explicit in American society. That bigotry is real and ever present — one need only watch the news to see rampant discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community in the workplace, in housing discrimination and hate crimes (“corrective rape” and brutal murders among them) to see that America is nowhere near the level of equality that some would have you otherwise think. Phelps is not anomalous. Loud preachers like him are rather the hidden norm abetted by many facets of this country.

Phelps himself wasn’t always this virulent in his protestations and beliefs. An eagle scout, Phelps began his adult life as a lawyer specializing in civil rights cases. In fact, the now-despised preacher was so acclaimed that he was recognized by a local branch of the NAACP. His true colors were shown soon thereafter, however, when he called a witness on the stand a “slut” and was eventually disbarred. He went on to found his infamous church and begin his family. With relatively few numbers, most of them being Phelps’s own family, the church thrust itself into the national conversation time and again with a series of free speech lawsuits that tested the very foundation of American rights. Perhaps the acts that precipitated these cases seemed so ludicrous that the majority of Americans and the media was captivated by them.

But history says otherwise. Even after America’s long history concerning the ebb and flow of civil liberties, we continue to test the integrity of our most basic of rights through the employment of our societies deepest of prejudices. In few places was it more evident than in the Supreme Court case Snyder v. Phelps, concerning the emotional impact of public protests. The beliefs of millions of Americans regarding homosexuality, free speech and even common decency (few could understand why someone would shout heinous things at a soldier’s funeral) were tested out in the open. It still reverberates in society today, as both American pundits and the hoi polloi debate political correctness in a country where a large contingent of the population is still either openly racist and homophobic or considered latent bigots. After a series of hate-filled protests at the funerals of fallen soldiers that would dishearten even Voltaire — the great polemicist of his day — the Supreme Court ruled that they were legal, albeit reprehensible. One great win for free speech, one greater loss for human dignity itself.

One would be hard-pressed to argue that most of Phelps’s beliefs weren’t derived from the mainstream of politics. Always present in local Kansas elections, Phelps attempted nearly ten times to run for public office. At one point, running under the Democratic banner, he managed to garner 31 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 1992. Phelps’s success in the primaries was not surprising. It must not be forgotten that the Democratic party was no beacon of gay rights at this time, with Al Gore saying in 1976 that homosexuality was “abnormal” and advocating to prevent HIV-positive people (a disproportionate amount of whom were LGBTQ+) from entering the country in 1988. Phelps in fact supported Al Gore and other Democrats and Republicans through multiple elections. So while it may be easy to judge Phelps now, his beliefs (although not most of his methods) were not necessarily radical.

America has been and continues to be unfriendly to members of the LGBTQ+ community and other groups that Phelps loved to hate. In this sense, America did not make it difficult for Phelps to posit his message. Time and again, Americans have subverted the founding principles of equality for their own political gain. Slavery, segregation and the continuing oppression of peoples of color represent the ongoing plight of one community, for example. It is actually shocking that we live in a country where more people aren’t like Phelps, given that there are a number of people in society who agree with his beliefs, however abhorrent they find the means with which he perpetuates them. In fact, some individuals are more like him than we realize. Prominent politicians frequently blame homosexuality for society’s downfall and homophobic hate speech is not uncommon either among celebrities (see Tracy Morgan or Alec Baldwin). While perhaps not always as vehement, these prominent individuals have an international stage in which to spread their views, that are quite similarly against equal rights for LGBTQ+ individuals.

Thus, just as with many American points of fascination throughout history, the legacy of Fred Phelps is one that leaves behind only pain and hatred. A scar on recent American history, his own actions and those of his church led to countless people being personally hurt or offended. In what will inevitably be one of the most infamous anti-progressive social movements in this country, Phelps’s church showed what America was trying to hide from both the world and itself. With the advent of his death, we need to mourn for the pain he caused, as well as for the failure of American love and acceptance to temper his actions. In this sense, his death brought with it little reprieve. Instead, as people continue to wonder why a man would do and say such horrible things, Phelps’s legacy will continue to only sow intolerance. For this we should mourn Fred Phelps: out of no sort of reverence for him, but rather out of anger that the emotional wounds he dealt were wrought by society itself, not by maverick madness.