United Liberty

One of Fred Phelps’ sons doesn’t want anything to do with what some have called America’s most hated family:

(RNS) When Nate Phelps’ son was about five years old and had been caught misbehaving, he taught his dad a lesson about ending the cycle of family abuse.

“I’d clung to the idea that corporal punishment was a requirement by God, because that’s what we were taught,” said Phelps, who says he was raised amid harrowing abuse.

His son Hunter shook as he sat on his father’s lap. “I asked him why he was shaking and he went on about how scared he was when I was going to spank him.”

Phelps decided not to use corporal punishment anymore. “No matter how hard I tried, it still left that child with an unreasonable fear,” he said.

The incident more than 15 years ago was a turning point for Phelps.

In a family whose business is demonstrating about God’s wrath against homosexuality (and other perceived sins), Nate Phelps could not be more of a black sheep. His estranged father, Fred, leads a church known for picketing U.S. military funerals with graphic signs that read, “Thank God For Dead Soldiers.”

Phelps’ relatives — described in a 2007 BBC documentary as “The Most Hated Family in America” — are members of the Westboro Church, in Topeka, Kan. But Phelps abandoned his upbringing decades ago and, in recent years, has embraced atheism.

Now 51 and a taxi driver in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Phelps has also publicly denounced his family’s teachings to various groups, including gays and lesbians.

(…)

The sixth of 13 children of Fred and Margie Phelps, Nate said his father was a civil rights attorney-turned-preacher who espoused a frightening version of Calvinism to his family.

“They believe that they alone in this time in history have been selected by God to carry his torch, his word, to the world and everyone else has fallen into error,” said Phelps.

Well, at least there’s some sanity in that family.