Many people in Topeka, Kan., first became aware of the Westboro Baptist Church in the early 1990s, when members began what would become their trademark public action: picketing to protest what they saw as the ills of an ungodly world.
Megan Phelps-Roper was 5 years old when it began; as a little girl, she stood with her parents and other family members — for that's what the church was at the time, one extended family — holding picket signs warning of gay people in the city's Gage Park.
Read Full Article »