I just found this interesting article on The Globe and Mail:
(paysite, but it lets you read 10 free articles a month)
Fred Phelps’ granddauters are in Montréal, and gave an interview about their breaking with the Westboro Baptist group:
She intended to do good with hate? Even if she has recovered, I want no parts of her.
Of course that was the intention. We are talking about children who were indoctrinated from birth. They were taught they were doing god’s work. But these girls were able to break through that and see what was really going on as they got older. They actually listened to other view points… At the cost of now being alone in the world with no prospects or family. Now they want to do good and help heal the pain the family caused. I can’t see that as anything but admirable.
I don’t think Fred himself ever intended to do good. But I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that at least some of his brainwashing victims were misguided into thinking that they were doing good.
That seems a rather odd sentiment to me.
It seems somewhat counterproductive to make efforts to reduce the amount of prejudice and bigotry and hatred in the world, and then be unwilling to give people a second chance when they finally come around. I guess there are actions that would put someone beyond the pale altogether, but if the transformation is genuine then i’m in favor of extending the olive branch.
This is especially the case when the person in question is relatively young. The younger woman in this story is 20 years old, and when i look back on my 20-year-old self, i don’t think i would like him very much. He held some casually racist and homophobic views, and while he never picketed against people in the streets or made attacks on them, he was happy to talk with his friends about how there were too many “slope-eyed” Asian immigrants in Australia, how Australia’s aboriginal people were lazy moochers, and how being a “poofter” was disgusting and unnatural.
None of this is anything i’m proud of, but i’m not going to deny it or cover it up either. I broadened my horizons and my mind, and came to recognize how stupid and uninformed my prejudices were. I’m glad that my teenaged stupidity didn’t define me for the rest of my life.
Couldn’t have said it better.
I’m amazed anyone escaped the toxic hellhole even somewhat intact let alone being able to shed the influence entirely.
It’s amazing what people can do in the belief that they are helping others. I recently read Steven Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature. Discussing the torture of “sinners” during the Inquisition, he explains that the prevailing wisdom was that the suffering inflicted in this life was necessary to prevent the sinner suffering for eternity in the next life.
Also in agreement. These women didn’t start the Westboro garbage at an age when they should have known better. As adults they’ve done the right thing. Admirable to say the least.
I must apologize for my first, intemperate, reaction. I just read the whole Globe & Mail article and I think they are wholly admirable young women. I didn’t realize that unreverend Phelps also targeted Jews and that the girls are sponsored here by a Jewish organization. I wonder where their support comes from.
Aye, me neither. Good job, Loach.
Oh, and GREAT job, Megan and Grace Phelps! Woot!
I must admit curiosity as to why the desire to work on a blueberry farm. It’s an aspiration I’v never heard before.
Antioxidants, yo.
I think part of that is probably just the babbling that comes from the freedom to see everything when they were so isolated before. It’s unlikely a real aspiration but rather a fleeting thought due to some recent event. Maybe she met someone who works there or read an article.
I get the sense both girls are just giddy with freedom. It’s exciting but almost overwhelming too.
I’m sure their family crushed any of the normal adolescent dreaming about “What will I do when I grow up?” They are probably starting at the place we all went through at 11 or 12 year of age.
You can’t condemn her for the twisted way she was raised, but she should be commended for learning to think for herself.
See post #9
Having spent five weeks in Québec this past summer, I can clarify a little. At least in the area I was staying (Chicoutimi, three hours north of Québec City), blueberries are huge. There was a forest fire years ago, and now they grow blueberries. The nickname for the locals is les bleuets (‘the blueberries’).
Also, antioxidants, yes.
Phelps targets everyone outside his unholy little family group, frankly. “Fags” are a convenient target and slur for him. I’d think that he’s solely a professional troll* but after hearing an interview with his first-escaped son, Nate, I think he’s at the very least a control freak abuser who does a great job of using religion as a bludgeon to control those who are under his thumb.
- It’s alleged that his family mostly supports themselves by getting people to take a swing them, after riling up funeral mourners/etc. I was gobsmacked when I heard Phelps was one of the first civil rights case lawyers but Nate said he did it because it was an untapped market that he stood to make tons of money working in.