Interviews - Jonathan Phelps - Westboro Baptist Church - October 4 and 11, 2006

     Jonathan Phelps is one member of the Westboro Baptist Church, a religious organization based in Topeka, Kansas, headed by Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr. It runs the website GodHatesFags.com and other websites expressing condemnation of homosexuals, Catholics, and other groups. The organization is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League, and as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

     The church bases its work around the belief expressed its best known slogan and the address of its primary website, "God hates fags", and expresses the opinion, based on its Biblical exegesis, that nearly every tragedy in the world is linked to homosexuality – specifically society's increasing tolerance and acceptance of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. It believes God hates homosexuals above all other kinds of "sinners" and that homosexuality should be criminalized, punishable by the death penalty.