# Whoa, Phred used to be a civil-rights attorney! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 25, 2010, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-phred-used-to-be-a-civil-rights-attorney/537261 "2010-04-25T01:21:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gestalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/90ced4/32.png) [@Gestalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gestalt)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-phred-used-to-be-a-civil-rights-attorney/537261/1 "2010-04-25T01:21:03Z")
> **[Fred Phelps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps)** > > Fred Waldron Phelps Sr. (November 13, 1929 – March 19, 2014) was an American minister and disbarred lawyer who served as the pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church, worked as a civil rights attorney, and ran for statewide election in Kansas. He gained national attention for his homophobic views and protests near the funerals of gay people, AIDS victims, military veterans, and disaster victims who he believed were killed as a result of God punishing the U.S. for having "bankrupt values" and toler... This is so interesting, and surprising, to me. Do any dopers know if he still ardently holds these beliefs about racial equality, simultaneous to his views about the evils of homosexuality? Or is racial equality no longer one of his soapboxes? If so, what changed his mind? Anybody else shocked by this? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-phred-used-to-be-a-civil-rights-attorney/537261/2 "2010-04-25T01:28:38Z")
> [@Gestalt](#): > > [Fred Phelps - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps#Civil_rights_attorney) > > This is so interesting, and surprising, to me. Do any dopers know if he still ardently holds these beliefs about racial equality, simultaneous to his views about the evils of homosexuality? Or is racial equality no longer one of his soapboxes? If so, what changed his mind? > > Anybody else shocked by this? Not really, since, like most of his claims, it’s all [bullshit](http://www.blank.org/addict/chapter6.html) -[Main site](http://www.blank.org/addict/) ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-phred-used-to-be-a-civil-rights-attorney/537261/3 "2010-04-25T04:47:02Z")
I could have sworn that Southren Poverty Law Center classfied the Phelpses as a Christian Identity cult. The Phelpses are EXTREME Baptists. Like the kind that would see Bob Jones University as " too libral" or the ones who still believe that segregation was fine and dandy or the kind that approve of domestic violence. It really boogles the mind that both MLK and Phelps came from the same church background. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-phred-used-to-be-a-civil-rights-attorney/537261/4 "2010-04-25T13:14:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Not really, since, like most of his claims, it’s all [bullshit](http://www.blank.org/addict/chapter6.html) > > -[Main site](http://www.blank.org/addict/) You know, as much as I’d like to agree with you here, Guin, I just can’t. Phelps’s fight on behalf of blacks overcoming Jim Crowe was very real. He has a plaque from the NAACP, and I remember reading about at least one black person writing him a letter to thank him for his help in court. I’ve read Addicted to Hate many times, and I accept most of it, but I’m skeptical about the passage you’ve linked to. I just cannot bring myself to believe that the easiest way for a white southern lawyer to make money would have been to defend poor blacks. Oh, I have no doubt that he _did_ scam them and earn his disbarment. The man was an asshole nutter even then, which speaks volumes to his intelligence and competence in that he was able to carry on that fight while out of his mind. Who knows what he might have been able to accomplish if his \*mentis \*had been just a little more _compos_? I hate Phelps, and I hate defending him, but if we are to have any hope at all of defeating him and his church one day, we have to face what we’re dealing with. Phelps is not a high school dropout with a dream for White America, an Internet connection, and “Fucked At Birth” tattooed on his forehead. He is a passionate, intelligent, and formidable enemy, and he really did go all out in his fight on behalf of blacks. . . until he fucked up and got disbarred, but again, we have to remember that his disbarment was almost beside the point when taken in the larger context of the fight itself. Dog only knows what hell he and his family went through over that alone–on top of the hellishness that is insanity and domestic abuse. As far as his racial views today, well I’m not sure. He is said to be in league with Christian Identity, and his church–while always virulently antisemetic–has \*really \*started in on the Jews, so this might have changed. Still, I remember fliers from a few years ago condemning racism. They also used KKK and Nazi symbology in a negative way–i.e.-They used them as insults against people they deemed to be racists. On the other hand, Phelps and his Sawney Bean clan _are_ crazy, so who knows. Just remember that crazy doesn’t equal racist, and it _certainly_ doesn’t equal stupid. These guys have experience in dealing with unpopular causes that goes back over 50 years, and they have trigger time in the courtrooms. People who don’t respect that have already lost any fight they plan to pick with the WBC. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-phred-used-to-be-a-civil-rights-attorney/537261/5 "2010-04-25T13:58:33Z")
I thougnt this fact was well known? An analogy can be drawn between him and Charlton Heston in a way, Heston was involved in Civil Rights well before it was popular and trendy to dom so, yet in his later years IMO he went mad over other beliefs. And secondly, dislike of homosexuality and homosexuals does not equal to being racist, indeed if it had been suggested to the average Civil Rights activist in the 1960’s that he was pro-homosexuality, good chance he would have been horrified. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-phred-used-to-be-a-civil-rights-attorney/537261/6 "2010-04-26T03:50:05Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > And secondly, dislike of homosexuality and homosexuals does not equal to being racist, indeed if it had been suggested to the average Civil Rights activist in the 1960’s that he was pro-homosexuality, good chance he would have been horrified. His homosexuality was one of the things that forced Bayard Rustin out of the SCLC.