ANALYSIS: Fred Phelps’ hateful legacy may be the opposite of all he intended

c. 2014 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) Fred Phelps, the 84-year-old founder of Westboro Baptist Church and media-master of hate speech campaigns, died Thursday (March 20) after devoting decades to damning Americans for tolerating homosexuality.

“God Hates Fags” was the Westboro philosophy, detailed in vile slogans on signs that a tiny band of relatives toted to 40 sites a week around the country. All told, the church in Topeka, Kan., claims to have staged some 53,000 protests.