Fred W. Phelps, Sr.; Shirley L. Phelps-Roper; Rebekah A. Phelps-Davis; and Westboro Baptist Church
Respondents
Margie J. Phelps, Counsel of Record Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is a small nondenominational ministry founded in 1990 in Topeka, Kansas. Starting in the 1990s, the church began holding public demonstrations against what it identified as American “sins,” such as homosexuality, adultery, and greed. Later, the church — led by minister Fred W. Phelps, Sr., and his family — started demonstrating at military funerals, claiming that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were evidence of God’s punishment of America. Phelps also claimed that the demonstrations were motivated in part by the fact that members of his church once had been assaulted…
