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Man: How about this one?
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♪ Louis, take a look at your life ♪
♪ You're in big trouble ♪
♪ Just trying to tell ya. ♪
Louis, when you die,
you're gonna have to stand before God.
What are you gonna tell him? Nothing.
He's gonna drop-kick your ass to hell.
Louis, Louis, Louis, Louis, Louis, Louis's heart.
Louis, Louis.
♪ Oh, poor Louis, Louis. ♪
Your vibe is very odd.
- Women: God hates America!
America is dead!
- One of the most notorious hate groups in America,
the Westboro Baptist Church, is a Christian ministry that,
for years, has preached a virulently anti-gay message
at funerals and high-profile events.
You angered the Lord your God,
and now he's cursed your family.
There's no consolation there.
- In 2006, and again in 2010,
I visited them in Topeka, Kansas,
discovering a world of indoctrination,
masterminded by church founder Fred Phelps,
known by family members as "Gramps".
- Fred: It's almost 18 months now,
and the siege has got people eating their babies...
and their small children, and each other!
You're gonna eat your babies!
- But Fred Phelps's death in 2014 had shaken up the church,
and a long-devoted member had defected and gone public.
You know, we claimed to love people.
This was the biggest contradiction of all, I think.
And I was totally blind to it.
- Now, embarrassing secrets were said to be coming out.
So I was back with America's most hated family.
Did you picket Gramps's funeral?
He went from dead to the ground
as fast as we could possibly get him there.
In a place where no one will be able to find him.
Now, how do you like that awesomeness?
- Louis: In Kansas City, Missouri,
15 or so Westboro members were outside the Sprint Center,
protesting college basketball.
- Man: Who's this kid's mother?
Holy [bleep] shit! You guys are pricks!
Get a life, get a [bleep] life!
Holy shit!
- Louis: The church views pastimes like basketball
as false idols.
- Man: When you place something above Christ,
like this filthy piece of silk
that represents a nation awash in sin,
you're an idolater.
[people shouting, car honking]
- Pickets are an opportunity for Westboro
to spread its hateful message,
and also to indoctrinate its own membership.
For them, the outrage they provoke
is a sign that they are doing God's work.
If a guy likes another guy, who the fuck cares?
Let 'em do them, let 'em do them.
- Among those present was the granddaughter
of church founder, Fred Phelps,
14-year-old Bethany Hockenbarger.
Can I talk to you? Tell me about your sign.
- This is actually my favourite sign I request every time.
Because when Satan whispered in Eve's ear to sin,
he made them realise what they were doing wrong
and they disobeyed God, and that was their sins.
And who are you talking to in that sign?
Everyone is prone to sin,
and unless you have God's grace,
you aren't gonna go to heaven, you're gonna go to hell.
Do you worry about going to hell?
- All the time, yeah. - Do you?
- Yes. - What do you think it's like?
It's obviously fire,
and there's obviously a lot of people
that are also gonna be there.
You're in pain for eternity, basically?
- Yes. - How's school going?
Good. I have a choir concert coming up pretty soon, so...
- What are you singing in the choir?
- A couple of Police songs,
a couple of Michael Jackson songs.
- Wait, hang on... - Yeah, that's what I said!
- Because you have a...
- Louis: There was also a new family.
Chris Jakes and four of his children
had joined four years earlier, leaving behind a wife and mother
to start a new life inside Westboro.
- What's your name? - Daniel Jakes.
- Yeah.
This is my brother Josh, and this is my sister Julie.
- Tell me about your sign?
- You know, this is one of our more famous ones,
particularly "God Hates Fags".
But I like this one 'cause it says,
"God Still Hates Fags".
God hasn't changed, he's not going to.
You know, staying the same.
- How long have you been here?
- Four years, three and a half years or so.
- So you would've been how old when you came, like 10?
- No, I'm 17 now, so I was 13, 12.
Were your parents divorced when you came here?
No, they were not.
- And do you miss your mum at all?
- Uh, I mean... not really.
And I know that sounds a little weird,
and I don't have a hatred for her.
I think the Lord has really helped me with that,
because, you know, my mom claims she loves me.
According to God's standards she hates me,
- she doesn't love me at all. - What do you mean? She...
She doesn't love me because she doesn't tell me the truth.
- Which is? - Which is that
if I don't obey God, I'm gonna go to hell.
Sex!
- I was back spending time at Westboro,
hoping to find out how the death of its founder and leader,
Pastor Fred Phelps, had affected the church.
Notoriously tight-knit,
most of the church members come from a single family,
the Phelps, and live on one block in Topeka, Kansas.
The chapel is in the same building
where Pastor Phelps, or "Gramps", once lived,
across the street from The Rainbow House,
a pro-gay rights charity.
One of the few members who isn't part of the Phelps family
is Steve Drain.
Where are we going?
- We're gonna go to the video newsroom.
- Steve first came as a documentary maker.
He was so impressed, he decided to join up,
bringing his family with him.
- Would I be right in thinking it was here
that I saw Gramps during his video preaching?
- Do you remember 13 years ago? - I do remember that.
- It was probably as new to you as it was to me in those days.
- Hi, guys. - How do you do?
- I'm Louis. - Hi, Louis.
- From the BBC. - Yes.
- You must be Pastor Fred Phelps.
- Yes. - Very pleased to meet you.
Glad to see you, Louis.
Pay attention, pay close attention.
Billy Graham, hell-bound false prophet.
Billy, you are headed straight and irreversibly for hell.
You are a lying, money-grubbing Arminian heretic.
At 88, Graham will soon die, and split hell wide open.
And Westboro Baptist Church will picket your funeral. Amen.
- After Pastor Phelps's death,
his place had been taken by a counsel
of seven elders, all male, of which Steve was one.
- Can you hear me OK?
I can hear you. OK. Here we go.
Greetings. The word of God is clear
on what makes a nation wicked in his eyes.
Mr. President,
will you not ask the Lord to strip you of your pride,
greed and vanity, and repent of that folly,
and ask the Lord to cause you to, humbly yet boldly,
speak his truth to this whole round world
while you still have this considerable platform?
We're commanded to love our neighbours as ourselves.
Fear God and keep his commandments. Amen.
Did that camera bounce much?
- No, but I had some audio blip. - Really?
But I wanna check the mic before we keep going.
- OK. - 'Cause it cut out
a lot at the end.
So it's a reasonable...
Compared with the rhetoric, the way it used to be.
You're more liable to remind people
of the route to salvation.
You're either the quickest study in the history of man,
or you already kinda came here with what you thought this was.
I... It's based on what I'm seeing, really.
And I don't mean it as a criticism.
It feels like a softening or a declination
from how maybe Gramps would've spoken it.
I think that it has more to do with...
growth and maturity than anything else.
[Imitating Fred Phelps] Donald Trump,
you're gonna split hell wide open when you die,
and Westboro Baptist Church will picket your funeral.
[laughs] That's not even close.
- [laughter] - A good try.
- Though there are usually one or two departures
from Westboro each year, the numbers at the church
have remained the same, hovering around 70.
Most of the new membership comes from children
born into the group.
- Hello there. - Hi.
How's it going?
Among those who'd had children since my last visit
was Jael Phelps.
- Good to see you. - Hi.
How you doing? Can we come in?
When I'd first met Jael,
we'd talked about her marriage prospects.
- This our... the computer study area.
It's not sinful to get married, is it?
And if you wanted to do that then how do you do that?
Well, first of all, I don't think that's ever gonna happen.
- Why wouldn't that happen? - Are you kidding me?
Are you kidding me?
Because I'm Jael Phelps, and I serve God, that's why.
This used to be your room, didn't it?
- I remember you showing me. - Yeah.
[child speaking indistinctly]
So cute. Whose room is this?
- Silas's.
- I can tell it's Silas's room 'cause it has
so many baby-appropriate things on the walls.
- [she laughs] - Yeah!
- Yeah, he's being sarcastic, darling.
- Will you change the walls,
or are you gonna keep the walls like this?
Or have you just not got round to it yet?
- No, no, no, this is intentional.
Why?
- This is one of my favourite rooms in the house.
I think it's a place to teach the children,
and children are concrete learners.
They're not, you know...
- Theoretical stuff... - Abstract, yeah sure.
Yeah, abstract stuff's gonna be over their heads, so...
- And in a way, what I would agree with
is a tiny baby like Silas, it'll be lost on him,
what this means. So maybe that's good.
'Cause actually a baby doesn't need to be thinking
- about hell the whole time. - Right.
- But do you think you have this up maybe
- for the older ones too? - Yeah.
I think these are wonderful works of God, they're amazing,
and they strike awe, you know, some of these things.
And so, yeah...
[babbles]
- Well, that made a lot more sense
than what your mum just said.
[laughs]
- Against the odds, Jael had found someone
from an unlikely place.
- Man: If you listen to the millions of Brits,
it's just amazing how detached from reality they really are.
The reality is Britain is broken.
- Steven Holroyd from Bradford had joined in 2011,
becoming another face
in Westboro's online ministry of hate,
denouncing a culture he viewed as decadent
and taking aim at gay celebrities.
- What does that say for a nation
when they exalt a sodomite like Elton John
and call him "Sir", how disgusting can you get?
God hates the UK.
- So, to get this out of the way,
how does a young man from Bradford
come to be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church?
- He was shown some things by God.
Right.
- And I'd seen your documentary,
I'd also seen Jeremy Kyle's deal with Shirl and Becca.
- And thought what?
Because most people saw those appearances
and thought, "Wow, those guys are crazy!"
- Right. - But you didn't think that.
It was impressive to see that they knew
what Bible verses were being referenced.
I was impressed by that, so I wanted to learn more.
- So then you had your visit, and then,
at the end of that, you thought what?
- Steve said, "Why go back to Yorkshire?"
And I felt that was a good question.
- Jael, I don't wanna put you on the spot,
but how did you realise that there were feelings
growing between you?
I felt like he was humble, and that he was modest,
and that he wanted to do the right thing.
So I felt that it would be a good person to sojourn with,
and we could help one another.
Serve the Lord together, so yeah,
I think that's my answer.
- It's not the stuff of a Hollywood rom-com.
[laughs] It was very Jane Austen,
if I can put it that way. All proper and appropriate.
- I never thought that I was cut out for this.
I saw myself as single for life, no question.
- Did you? How come?
Never had any experience with kids.
I was never around girls really. [laughs]
You weren't a sort of party boy?
- Nope.
This was our first impression of Matthias.
Oh, OK, this is old-school Matt.
Wow. You look like a 'Wallace and Gromit' character.
He kind of does, I can see that!
I had just worked a night shift. I was tired.
There we go. We'll just go with that.
- That's nice. What year is this?
- 20... - 2012.
- And so you're just clowning around in this one.
- And you got married here, I take it, in the chapel?
- Yes. - Who officiated?
Gramps.
- And the Bible's quite traditional,
obviously, in the matter of...
the man's kind of in charge, wouldn't you say?
- Yeah. He dictates what the law of the home is,
and the wife is to carry that out.
Just as Jesus Christ is in charge of the church.
- Mmm. - Yes.
- Steven had been re-christened "Matthias"
but in his old life, he'd been a postal worker.
He'd been raised by his dad,
after losing his mother to cancer aged 13.
When was the last time you had contact with your dad?
- About a year after I got married.
- So six years ago. - Yeah.
Once he found out that I'm not gonna be there
drinking with him anymore, wasting my time anymore,
then he's done, he doesn't have a use for me anymore.
He's not leading me down that path to hell.
- I could just imagine so many people in the UK seeing you
and thinking you were somewhat jaded
about life in the UK generally. Is there something in that?
- Probably more the society waxing worse.
- Yeah. - When they forget God,
they wax worse.
People hate each other.
It's just a divided society.
- Between?
False religion, the Muslims, and everybody else.
It's just hatred between these factions.
Things don't look good for the UK.
- It hurts to hear you say that.
- Well, feelings... Feelings, Mr. Louis.
What good are feelings in front of a judgment seat of Christ...
where we all will be?
- Matthias came across as someone
who'd never really fitted in to his old life.
A large family selling a hateful brand
of religious certainty must've had appeal
to someone who'd always felt detached.
With those born into Westboro, I'd always tended to think
they might've led normal lives if raised elsewhere,
away from the poisonous influence of Pastor Phelps.
But in the wake of his death, strange reports had circulated.
Sources had told me
Gramps had had a change of heart in his final days,
causing him to be excommunicated from his own church.
- Do you want a sign, Louis? - Oh, no, thank you.
- You sure? 'Cause I got some good ones in here.
Let's use this one right here. I like this one a lot.
It's a good question, it's a good Bible question.
Why did God destroy Sodom?
- Westboro had never publicly made a statement
about the death of Pastor Phelps.
- There's Shirley. - Yep.
- At a local picket, I had a chance
to speak to Fred Phelps's daughter, Shirley.
- Nice to see you. - You too.
- How are you doing? - I'm doing well.
I haven't seen you in a while.
- What do we do, shake hands? - No.
- Nice to see you. - You too.
♪ You should have listened to our word. ♪
- In my previous visits, Shirley had been
an uncompromising and outspoken messenger of God's hate.
- You worship your backside.
- Don't tell me what... - You worship your tiny...
You just said it! You said it!
Are you a homosexual? Are you or not?
- I didn't say God worshipped my backside.
- You do worship your backside.
- Louis: Since then, three of her children had departed.
According to Westboro beliefs,
she was now forbidden from seeing them.
Among them was a daughter, Megan.
Well, I don't know what to say, Shirley,
'cause I know you've been through a lot. And you've had...
Three children have left since I last saw you.
- Yeah. - That's a lot to take on board.
- I still have more, so there might be more leave.
- You've got seven left. - Yes.
- That must've been very painful.
- Like life, it's all painful.
You know I've been in touch with Megan?
- Well, I assumed you had.
Yeah. You know she's married and has a daughter now?
Yes, I know that.
Who I'm assuming you haven't met?
No, I have not.
If she came back and wished to sit down with you,
how would that look?
- [sighs] To what end?
- For a mother and daughter to...
Look, the Lord Jesus Christ said that your enemies,
that's his enemies, will be... They have your own household.
And Megan left because Megan doesn't believe these things.
So there's nothing to talk about.
- Am I right in thinking Gramps
was voted out of the church towards the end?
So, first of all, we would never talk
about internal church matters externally.
Why would we do that? It's none of your business.
- Right. - Whether somebody...
- Shirley: And he's dead. - He is dead.
So in a sense he's no longer part of the church.
So in a sense it's not an internal church matter.
- He's dead. - Look...
- Shirley's saying he's dead,
what's the relevance of him being dead?
He's my dad and I'm not gonna talk about him.
Yeah, you're also selective on your compassion, Louis.
Well, you're talking about your feelings.
I thought you weren't big on respecting feelings?
- I don't respect feelings.
So why are you playing the feelings card?
- I have some, but I don't respect them.
- You seem like you used to be a truth seeker,
and now you're just a muck raker.
I mean, what is all this?
Come on, man, it's like you haven't grown at all.
You still wanna just kick around the same things.
Well, I'll take that as a compliment.
If he died having been voted out of the church,
would that mean that he went to hell?
So, first of all, men are fallible.
God's infallible, men are fallible.
Talking about Gramps, though, at the end, did he fear God
and obey his commandments at the end?
- Look, I don't know a man's heart.
- Oh, you... That's such a double standard.
It's not a double standard.
It is. It's like if you're outside of the church,
then you hold them to one standard,
and then if it's Gramps, it's all this,
"maybe, don't know, could be, might not, how could we know?"
I do know that all of us sin, but there's a difference.
- But why was he voted out of the church, then?
- Nobody said he was. - Well, I know he was.
- Well, you don't know that from anybody
inside the church, you know that...
You're playing word games. The fact that you won't confirm it
doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
And I'm not gonna...
- The fact that you make the claim
doesn't mean that it happened either.
- Well, I know it happened.
OK, well, what else do you wanna talk about?
Do you wanna talk about something that means something?
- Shirley had come across differently
from previous visits, as almost fragile.
- I was on my way to see
Shirley's eldest daughter, Megan.
Once one of Westboro's most committed believers,
she was now its most outspoken critic,
with a TED Talk that had gone viral,
a book coming out, and a Hollywood movie
about her life said to be in the works.
- 99.9% of mankind is heading straight for hell,
and there's nothing you can do about it.
- You guys, right... - Wait, wait, I'm gay.
- If you don't repent, you're engaged in some filthy conduct,
you're headed straight for hell
and there's nothing you can do about it.
The church had been my entire identity.
So when I walked away from Westboro, I walked into a void.
I didn't know who I was, or what I believed.
I was terrified of my own mind,
the mind that had been, not just convinced,
but passionately dedicated to the idea
that my primary duty in life was to warn the world
that they were all doomed.
- In Nebraska, following a college speaking engagement,
I had a chance to catch up with Megan.
- Hello. - Hello.
There's two of you.
Isn't that crazy? Actually three.
- Hi! Nice to see you.
- So good to see you, Louis.
- And this must be Solvi. - Solvi.
- What a cutie.
Megan had emailed me soon after she left the church,
and we'd remained in touch.
Yes, look at this, Megan.
This is good grabbing.
She was now married to a man
she'd met on social media, while still inside Westboro.
- Gonna say "bye"? Bye-bye. - Bye-bye.
OK, I think you're gonna sit there, if that works for you?
- That's wonderful. - And we'll just catch up.
- When I last spoke to you,
you were still inside Westboro Baptist Church.
How would you explain why you left?
- The shortest answer I can think, is that it was
conversations I was having with people on Twitter,
that first allowed me to see inconsistencies
within Westboro's ideology.
Because the way that I saw outsiders generally...
Even, you know, people I went to school with,
there was always that sense of otherness,
always keeping them at arm's length.
Once I got on Twitter, and started, you know,
developing rapport with people,
even though we obviously were on totally different sides
of basically every scriptural issue,
over time, it became this community for me.
And I started to care about what they thought.
And that made me start to think, you know,
I started to care about how they felt.
And then once that thread started to unravel,
I couldn't unsee it.
- What occurs to me though,
is that all through Westboro practice and preaching,
there are contradictions
that you would've been aware of growing up.
But they also had this kind of catch-all get-out
to do with, well, you're mortal,
and you can't understand stuff that's divine.
You don't get to decide, you just have to obey.
- Right. You know, we claimed to love people.
This was the biggest contradiction of all, I think.
And I was totally blind to it.
How is it possible that we could at once think
that we were loving our neighbour,
and then at the same time,
praying for God to kill them in all sorts of terrible ways?
So, the old me, like, pre-Twitter,
I would've found a way to justify it,
I would've accepted their explanations for things.
But once that crack was, you know, kind of there,
I was not gonna go to any more funeral pickets.
I wasn't gonna hold the signs
that I believed were unscriptural.
- The sense of community Megan derived from Twitter
seemed to have had the effect of amplifying her inner doubts,
and emboldening her to leave.
Alongside that had been a feeling of resentment
of what she saw as a takeover by the church elders,
sidelining her mother,
and, after she left, pushing out Gramps.
So then how did it come about
that Gramps kind of fell out of favour?
I mean, as I understand it, he was actually
voted out of the church. Is that correct?
Yeah, that's what I've heard
from multiple people who have left, since I did.
And they all point to, like, the day that he was voted out,
he had gone out onto the front lawn of the church
and said, you know, called out to the people
at the Equality House...
- That's the rainbow-coloured house?
Right. And said, "You're good people."
And, you know,
they kind of ushered him back inside and...
Which would be completely contradictory
to his entire ministry.
- Absolutely.
And he was, I think, at that point, 80,
you know, 85.
- What is your view? Do you think
that he had a sincere change of heart at the end,
or do you think that was a symptom of dementia?
- I think he did have a change of heart,
and they'll tell you that, you know, he didn't.
Of course he didn't have a change in perspective.
But the fact that it was the actual,
like, the thing that triggered his expulsion,
makes me believe that it was real.
Which is why, you know, I still have hope
that I'll get to have my mom back someday.
- It was encouraging to see Megan embracing a life
so radically different to her old one.
A testament to the power of human connection
to catalyse change.
But whether Gramps had really reformed
remained an open question.
I found myself wondering who might be next to go.
I knew Megan had a sister,
Shirley's only remaining daughter, Becca.
Back in Topeka, I found her picketing
a local church under the watchful eye
of her older brother, and Westboro elder, Sam.
Becca, are you alright to talk about your sisters
- Megan and Grace a little bit? - Sure. Yeah.
What do you wanna say about that?
I say that it's a pretty sad and sorrowful thing.
I've been touch in with Megan a little bit,
and from her book, the sense I got was there was a little bit
of a changing of the guard at Westboro,
and that maybe your mum had been somewhat pushed to the side.
And that there were elders who were maybe
calling the shots more,
and that that was difficult, you know,
for her and for Grace, maybe for you as well.
- I haven't read anything Megan's put out since she left.
Well, you would be able to read it, though, wouldn't you?
- I don't read articles, I don't read the books.
I've got my path to run in front of me,
and I put blinders on.
She knows how to push my buttons, and she's my sister,
and she was that child right in front of me.
- You were very close.
I depended on her for a lot of things for a lot of years.
And I thought at one point...
when I saw that she was derailing,
when I saw that things were going south
and she would be in my prayers every night.
It was so distressing, watching her...
and leading Grace.
- And then she walked away.
We didn't leave her, she walked away.
So you don't get to come with her perspective,
and her gripes against the way that God set up
the order of things in this world.
That a woman submits herself to her husband,
that the man is the head of the woman.
And to drag us through the mud
because she doesn't wanna submit,
where we do want to submit.
And you can try to make us ashamed,
and say we're misogynistic and all that crap,
and you can take it right to hell with you,
if that's what you're gonna hold on to.
- We were getting to a moment of emotion with Becca,
and you just kind of stomped all over it.
- Yeah.
- Becca: I love it. I give him full permission.
It's almost like it was symptomatic
of the narrative that I was pushing,
that I asked a female member of the church a question,
and then the elder came and spoke for her.
And you asked my mom about it, and she answered you!
- But you're OK with that? - He spoke with me.
- You liked that he answered for you?
I love how the Lord
puts the order of things in the Earth.
There's great help to be had there,
and there's great safety to be had there.
- What you're doing is, you're setting up a world
where women are so helpless,
that they can't say what they think and what they mean
in front of men. Is that what it is?
They can if you're there speaking for them.
- OK, 'cause she's my sister too, Louis,
but you didn't come asking me these questions, did ya?
- Would you like me to?
- That's a cute play you've got.
We can schedule an interview.
- Uh-huh. This is subversive behaviour on your part.
It's kind of scary, though,
that you've been condemned to such a thing.
To be the accuser of the brethren.
That's work of Satan.
- Dude, why are you still here?
- Why are you still here? - 'Cause I want him here!
- Oh, Louis. You're so slimy and slithery, bro.
- What are you doing for work these days?
- I work at Phelps Chartered Law Firm.
- Cool. - Kind of play of lot of roles.
- You're not married? - Not married yet.
- Better to walk alone? - I'm engaged.
- Are you? - Yeah.
- Who to? - [laughs]
- Are you serious? When did that happen?
- February 7th.
- It's all quite new. - It's very new.
Joshua. Congrats.
- I think it's time to go. - Hey, we've gotta go, guys.
- Becca's engagement to newcomer Josh Jakes
suggested she might not be leaving any time soon.
Despite the hate they spew at pickets,
in theory, anyone can attend a Westboro Sunday service.
This is sometimes the first step on the road to joining.
Among those preparing to worship was a new face.
- Louis. - Good to meet you, Louis.
- How's it going? - It's going alright.
- What's your name? - J, just the letter J.
- So what's going on with you?
How did you hear about it, and why are you here?
- I've seen both of your previous documentaries,
and actually I wanted to thank you for that.
Because I was able to come to my current position
in relation to the Westboro Church,
as a result partly of watching
those two documentaries that you did,
which I am about 90-some percent
on the same page with Westboro's doctrine.
- I made those programs from a humanistic perspective.
- Right.
As a way of showing how poisonous and hateful practices
had grown out of a certain kind of religious practice.
You didn't see that I was attempting to elicit...
I saw what you were attempting to do, yeah, I did see that.
- Psychological take, if you like.
I heard what they were saying,
and I really don't believe in my heart
that they're a hate group.
In fact, I'm pansexual myself.
But because I'm a Christian, I'm a born-again Christian,
I feel God's call to conform to the image of Christ.
Hang on, wait a second. You just said...
You're pansexual?
- That's right. - What does that mean?
Pansexual is essentially that my sexual attractions
are not limited to any specific gender,
gender identity or gender expression.
- Do you mean... - It's not that I am
attracted to everyone, but I could be attracted to anyone.
But I believe that God's calling for me
to conform to his image is more important
than my fulfilling my earthly...
urges and desires.
- So you are celibate, is that right? At the moment?
- That's correct. The first time I engaged in intercourse
was August, and that was a mistake.
You know, it's either you pursue temporary enjoyment
and you suffer eternally,
or you suffer for a little while to be in the presence of God.
- In former years, Gramps's weekly sermons
had been his chance to impart his fire-and-brimstone theology
to the congregation.
God put it in your wicked heart to start that war.
It's almost 18 months now in the siege,
you've got people eating their babies...
and their small children, and each other!
You're gonna eat your babies!
- Since his death, the seven church elders
took turns in the pulpit.
- Man: Now, when it comes to this issue of arms,
if there was ever a thing that people liked to flaunt...
And it's sickening, really.
People absolutely love for others to know
about their acts of charity.
Saying, "Here's my act of good." [laughs]
- Louis: It was striking how much the preaching style,
and even the message of the sermon, had mellowed.
- Being a peacemaker means that you tell people
how to have peace.
Lasting, real, true peace.
And that comes in one way, being right with God.
- Increasingly I wondered if Gramps's death
might've led to a toning down of church practices,
and whether it might even foretell bigger changes.
And it was possible the process had started before he died.
By now I'd heard from more sources
that Gramps had been excommunicated
for behaviour related to dementia.
With the church unwilling to discuss it,
I'd made contact with one of the most recent defectors,
who had been at the meeting where Gramps
had been voted out of the church.
Fred Phelps's granddaughter, and Shirley's niece,
21-year-old Rachel Hockenbarger.
- Hi, Rachel? - Hi, yeah.
- Louis. - Yeah.
- How you doing? - I'm good, how are you?
Nice to meet you. Can we come in?
- Yeah, of course. - Look at you!
- You don't look very Westboro. - That's the point!
- Tell me about your tattoos?
- So I have this one down here. This is the first one I got,
and it is my siblings and I's initials,
first and second initial, all in binary code.
And then I have one up here.
- "Whatever nightmares the future holds,
"are dreams compared to what's behind me."
Yes, it's a quote from 'Guardians of the Galaxy',
Gamora says it, which is who that glass is.
She's one of my favourite characters.
- Does that mean something to you?
- Yeah, just trying to move forward.
And that was a concept I played with a long time in my head.
- Were you a true believer?
Did you sincerely believe when you were inside?
- For a long time, yeah. I was baptised when I was ten.
- Which is quite young, isn't it?
- Yes. Not the youngest, but I was quite young.
I was just so angry all the time,
because I was being forced to hate people.
And I was always told that I was, like, blessed
to be born where I was born, but I didn't feel that way.
- I felt like it was a curse. - Why?
Because you go out to pickets,
and you get things thrown at you, you get screamed at,
and it's just, everybody hates you,
and you hate yourself for it.
- So you were there when Gramps,
- your grandfather, died? - Yeah.
And one thing that's been alleged
is that he was out of favour when he died.
- Yeah, it was very true. Um, they...
He was very sick and they isolated him
to his own house, and made him live there by himself,
when he was too old and too sick to take care of himself.
And then they ended up moving him to, like, a hospice home.
- What had he done wrong to be out of favour?
- They said he was mistreating his wife,
and then he had told the people across the street
at The Rainbow House that they were good people.
Do you think this thing happened with The Rainbow House?
- I do think it happened. Like, obviously I didn't see it,
but it's been talked about with, like, the group.
- The church members at the time discussed it?
- Yeah.
- And it was seen as what? Evidence of...
That he had fallen out of faith.
They see a lot of, like, especially, like,
mental illnesses and stuff like that as demons, as a curse.
And so they're like, if God let that happen to him
then it is how he is as a person basically.
- So it wouldn't be purely medical?
- No.
It would be some symptom of divine disfavour?
- Yes. They don't like to talk about it
because, you know, if you kicked him out,
then what strength do you have, what's your foundation?
- Right, because if it turns out he was fallible...
Mm-hmm.
..then, you know, maybe a lot of the other interpretations
he put on things were incorrect.
Yep. [sighs]
- Do you think they'll ever change,
and there's a chance of it all becoming almost normal?
- Maybe. I can't expect it,
but like I do have, like, some hope that, like,
something will trigger this, like, compete unravel of it.
You know, every kingdom falls, it's bound to happen eventually.
But I don't wanna sit around and wait for it to happen.
- The idea of Fred Phelps being cut off and isolated
when he died seemed ironic,
given his role in creating the doctrine.
Gramps's removal had coincided
with the increasing influence of the male elders,
and it was clear something was changing at Westboro.
Though exactly what, and whether for the better,
was hard to say.
With these questions in mind,
I was paying a visit to another church leader
who seemed to have been sidelined, Shirley.
- Hello. - Oh, snap!
- How are you doing? - Look at you, all in pink.
Yeah. My mom lives here now.
- How's she doing? - She's doing well.
- Shall I sit here? - Sure, if you would like.
So what's been happening?
- [sighs] A lot of good stuff.
- Yeah. And some not so good.
- No, it's pretty much all good.
- The picture I have sort of pieced together,
is that Gramps died and I've been told
that he'd been voted out of the church in 2013.
And I'd heard that one of the reasons he was voted out
was because he had approached The Rainbow House,
next door to where the chapel is,
and said, "You're good people."
And this was viewed as in contradiction
to everything he'd ever preached.
- He did not mean in any of his words to say,
that it is OK to flagrantly violate
the commandments of God.
- Evidently, whatever your father said...
was part of a case that was made against him,
that led to him being voted out of the church.
- You don't have the full facts about from the day
that you're speaking of, to the day that he died.
You don't have the full facts.
- Well, would you care to enlighten me?
No.
I mean, I'm sure it's been immensely painful to you,
to have two of your daughters leave at the same time.
And then not that long after that, your son Zach.
Would you like to give me a sense of how that felt?
- Well, I know you have a child.
- Three.
- It didn't start the day they left.
[tearfully] I told you when you here last,
that I see things in the children
that cause me to wonder.
But I also told you that if all of them leave...
Sorry... [sobs] Just give me a second...
..that it does not change anything.
It certainly doesn't change God.
And it doesn't change what I'm gonna do.
And don't ask me questions like that.
It's... They were my children.
Everything that I had...
..was theirs.
Everything that I know was theirs.
We treated them well.
But, we don't...
..control the heart,
we don't own salvation,
we can't do anything about that.
So...
we go with the wisdom of God
on all of these matters.
It doesn't change the fact that it's sad,
and painful.
- It was strange to see a woman so broken by grief,
and at the same time, so unyielding.
A self-created victim of the hate
she had sowed for so many years.
- Man: You guys are gonna scare your child!
I'm from your neighbourhood, man. I'm from Topeka.
I know where y'all are from, man.
Y'all are all trash, y'all are terrible human beings.
I don't care what you say. You're scaring your child.
- And so we give a fuck what you say?
- Louis: Another day of picketing basketball,
and I had a moment to reflect on what
I'd seen since being back.
A church still dedicated to promoting bigotry,
though in a slightly diluted form.
Losing members, but making up numbers
with a new wave of seekers and troubled souls.
- My life now is lived for the Lord.
It's not my life, it's not my decision.
I'm here because the Lord brought me here.
- A group going through changes,
but with a future that was hard to predict.
So who lives upstairs here now?
- Nobody lives upstairs.
- I decided to speak once more to Steve Drain.
- So you've been here before. - Yes, I have.
- You know, I'm gonna put a scenario,
and you probably won't like it, but I'm gonna put it out there.
So the view I think I'm gonna take is that
obviously Gramps died, and since then,
what I see is a little bit of a mellowing.
Did that shock you when I said that?
- It doesn't shock me at all and I...
- 'Cause you recognised it.
No, it's because it amazes me for you
to think that you can come here for a couple of days,
and now you've got the new view of our church.
- Well, I knew you wouldn't agree with it.
- No, it's not that I don't agree with it.
Hey, listen, you still, you still keep trying
to fit a square peg in a round hole, Louis.
We love the Lord, that's what we do here.
Mmm. I don't think that's the part
that people are offended by.
- What are they offended by? - Well...
The word of God, that's what they're offended by.
I think the wanton use of the term "fag" is...
Really? That's the hill to die on?
How about this, they're sodomites,
it's a filthy sin.
And we're not gonna sit here and sanitise it,
because the world wants to sanitise
that word etymologically, into respectability. Fags.
- Well, yesterday the "F" word was only on one placard
out of about 25.
Well, that's because we have so many...
In the old days, it'd be half of them would say stuff like that.
- That's because we have so many more messages.
Come here. Look here.
That's common vernacular, right there.
"Most people go to hell."
Does that not worry you? Well, check this out...
But you could see that in any kind of fundamentalist,
or evangelical corner of the street,
The End Is Nigh, Ministry, what you're...
Then go and do a documentary on them then.
- That is classic Phelps.
- I made that sign. - Yeah.
But, you know, those aren't Easter bunny heads.
Those are Playboy Bunny heads.
- Yes, they are. - On fag bodies so...
- Is it still the case that you rejoice,
and are happy at the idea of,
say, soldiers being blown up,
or people being killed in spree shootings?
Those are righteous judgements of God,
because he certainly not only could've prevented it,
but would have prevented if his will dictated so.
Right, I got that, but I'm asking a really simple question.
I have seen with my own eyes, members of this church
laughing, hooting, jubilating at funeral pickets,
right, expressing joy and happiness.
- I can rejoice over it being a righteous judgement of God.
And on a human level, go,
"Man, I think that's pretty sad that that person died."
Doesn't mean that on a human level we don't think
that it's a sorrowful thing that happened.
- Do you know what facial expression
goes with the idea of rejoicing sorrowfully?
- You're not confusing...
Is that a smile, or, what emoji is that?
- It's a ludicrous concept. - It's not a ludicrous concept.
And it speaks to the contradiction.
You're inhabiting a contradictory concept,
and you're trying make it sound reasonable,
it doesn't make any sense.
I think that what you're doing here
is kind of pernicious, Louis.
Can you elevate the dialogue a little bit here, brother?
The feeling I get is that you have
a more complicated attitude now.
It's less balls-out,
get horrible words in these people's faces
when they're in a vulnerable state.
Maybe the suffering that you've all lived through,
losing so many family members,
has induced you to be more compassionate and sympathetic
to the pain and suffering you inflict on others.
Well, I think that's kind of a simplistic viewpoint.
It's called growth, Louis, it's called change and growth.
- My conversation with Steve made me reflect
on the delicate position Westboro was in,
facing a choice of how much of Gramps's legacy to continue,
but unable to admit to any deviation
from a doctrine that allowed for no possibility of error.
- Thanks for getting the diaper bag.
- No problem. It's part of the service.
Megan was in town
on a visit to some other ex-Westboro members.
She decided to make an unannounced stop off
at her old home, and she'd invited me along.
So, what's the plan?
- My dad's birthday's on Saturday
and any time I'm around at one of these times,
I try to leave something... something there.
- Sorry, I can't see.
I'm just trying to figure out where I'm going.
- There we go! - [laughs]
Hey.
- By now, in addition to Becca's engagement,
I'd learned Megan's brother Jonah
was also getting married to one of the Jakes siblings.
I was intending on sharing the news.
I wanna bring you up to date on...
Well, I guess get your reaction
to what I've learned from being back a little bit.
But maybe we should do that after we walk around.
By giving a card to your dad for his birthday...
- Yeah. - ..you're doing that for you
or for him, or for some other reason?
It is for me, because I'm trying to be
the kind of person that I wanna be, you know.
It is also because there is this narrative in the church,
that when people leave, that they don't care about you.
Mm-hm.
That they just wanna go off and live a life of sin,
and that you don't matter to them anymore,
and all of these things. And it's just not true.
And I want them to know what we're thinking and feeling,
and hope it will have some kind of impact,
like, I don't know.
So I'm just gonna go do this real quick.
- Are you OK? - Yep.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
Do you think she might be in there?
Yeah. The van's there.
- But why don't I knock? - Out of interest.
My sister knocked once, and they turned off the lights
and pretended they weren't there.
I just hate the sense that I'm now, you know,
one of the people that they're watching out for.
That they're watching on the cameras,
and then sending these text messages to the whole group,
you know, to warn them of, you know, this...
whatever word you wanna use.
What word would they use?
Rebel. I mean, that's... an easy one that comes to mind.
But it's kind of funny.
- Depraved, filthy beast. - Sure.
- That's a bit more colourful. - [laughs]
- Much has been written about the best way to reach
the indoctrinated minds of Westboro,
whether to confront, or protest, or ignore.
Megan's approach, a sustained and friendly engagement,
was based on what had worked with her.
I think JR and Matt are in that one.
Is that right?
They're in the one that John and Paulette were in.
- Oh, that's this one. - That's this one?
Musical houses.
You know that... I feel weird telling you this,
you probably know it, that Becca's engaged.
[sadly] No. No. To whom?
Josh Jakes.
I think they were a family that arrived after you left.
- Yeah. - But you know about them?
I know about them, I did not know that she was engaged.
I mean, I obviously want her to be happy, obviously.
I just...
It's a lot harder to leave
when you are married and you have children.
I think it just makes things a lot more complicated.
And when I was here, one of the things
I eventually said to my mom in a moment of despair,
and I don't know what she thought about this,
was that there was no way that I would ever marry anyone
that had anything to do with this church.
Because when the elders took over,
the way that the husbands lord over their wives now,
I just absolutely believe that this place is toxic.
So that's what... When I think about Becca being,
you know, subjected to that, in any way...
- It just makes me really sad. - Mmm.
Oh, Becca.
And do you know Jonah is engaged, did you know that?
I feel so terrible.
- Oh no, I'm sorry.
Because I know this is supposed to be happy news,
and I really hope that it is for them.
I really, really do. I just...
It just makes it obviously a little less likely,
or a lot less likely
that I'll ever get to have them back.
So I feel so terrible...
that this is the response. [sniffs]
I just love them so much, you know.
I know it's a very selfish hope, in some ways,
to have them out. I wouldn't hope for them to leave
if I didn't think that it was for their own good, you know.
It's a lot to take on board.
- Oh god, I just wanna go curl up and cry.
- Do you wanna take a break?
- I'm sorry. [sniffing]
- I just don't understand why it has to be this way.
It is just a heartbreaking waste.
All these lost years.
Grace said to our mom once, "If there were a God,
"why would he want it to be this way for her daughters?"
And she's our mother.
I still don't have an answer.
- Is Solvi doing OK? - She's doing really well.
♪ Then sings my soul ♪
♪ My saviour God to thee ♪
♪ How great thou art ♪
♪ How great thou art. ♪
- Louis: It would be difficult to overstate
the amount of grief caused by Westboro
and its doctrine of divine hate over the years.
A creed created by a spiteful pastor,
and passed down through the generations,
dividing families, and denying feelings.
But in my time back, I'd also seen reasons
to believe in the possibility of change.
Thanks in part to the death of its founder,
but also one ex-member's willingness
to fight hate with love,
and division with engagement.
- Megan: One point that I hope
you'll take away from all this is that
when people are in the thrall of poisonous ideology,
it's really not all about deliberate ill will,
or lack of intelligence.
It's about the unbelievable destructiveness
and staying power of bad ideas.
And the more of us who are willing to reach out,
to disagree without demonising,
the more likely we are to change hearts and minds,
to heal divisions, and to create a better society
for all of us in the process.
Thank you so much for having me.
[applause]
Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv