But we weren’t trying to hide behind high, thick compound walls or establish an isolated settlement in the desert. God was on our side. He protected us, and that was all the protection we needed. We were God’s gifts on earth, His messengers and His angels.
CHAPTER EIGHT
But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.
—2 Chronicles 36:16
In August 2001, I entered Topeka West High School filled with optimism. The school was just past the enormous Mount Hope Cemetery, about two miles from my house. In the month since our family had arrived, I had become close enough to my three best friends that we had affectionate nicknames for each other. I was called La, Jael was Jay, Megan was Meg, and Rebekah was Bekah. At Topeka West, Jael and I were going into eleventh grade, Megan was going into tenth, and Bekah was going to be a freshman. The school had about eleven hundred students in the four grades, so Jael and I were with almost three hundred other juniors.
Having friends gave me confidence as I returned to public school for the first time in ten months, but the transition was still challenging. Everybody knew who the Phelps girls were, since they even picketed the high school. Therefore, not only was I a curiosity as the “new girl from Florida,” but I was also associated with the WBC, which came with its own negative presumptions and prejudices about me.
As much as I put my trust in God to help me navigate the first few days of school, I put equal trust in my friends. The four of us never took the bus, choosing instead to have Megan drive us in one of the Phelps-Ropers’ cars. We were exclusive and inseparable, from our studying to cross-country running to weekend amusements. My first week at Topeka West, I ran into one of my old elementary school friends from Lawrence in the hall. I was really happy to see her until Megan let me know I shouldn’t associate with her anymore, saying, “She’s a whore.” I avoided her, and eventually she got the hint.
It didn’t take me long to adopt the same mind-set as my new clique, that anyone who was not from our church was confused and had been brought up wrong. The Phelps girls had the advantage of being born and raised in the church, however, so they hadn’t been putting themselves ahead of God all those years during which I hadn’t even known about His fire. I hid my fear that I would be rejected by them since my upbringing had been flawed. I was joining a righteous club of His elite, and with that came the panic that I could be cast out at any time. I was so outnumbered by blood relatives of the pastor’s—including Libby, whose doubts about me were no secret—that despite their reassurances, I’d still sometimes feel paralyzed by a sense of overwhelming inadequacy. I’d think I was like the wicked, with no purpose and not serving a good, truthful, or obedient life. I had no specific reason to feel this way, but I’d just feel doomed. I made it my mission to work on improving myself so much that I’d never fall out of their favor.
The Phelps girls had similar characteristics—clear, fair skin; wide, toothy smiles; and high, chiseled cheekbones. Megan was beautiful, with gorgeous, dark, curly hair that fell right past her shoulders. No one would have guessed that she wasn’t allowed to cut it, since you couldn’t tell how long it was unless it was wet. At five-nine, she was three inches taller than me. She was one of the prettier girls in our foursome, a spitting image of Shirley as a young woman, with piercing blue eyes and a slender face. She had an outgoing personality and thrived on being in the spotlight, the perfect character assets for her in her role as the junior spokesperson for the WBC.
Bekah was also tall, slender, and athletic. She was pretty in a plain way, but not as dazzling as Megan. Her straight blonde hair was down to her waist, but she had a lot of split ends that just kept splitting, keeping it from getting exceptionally long. Bekah was more sheepish than Megan and didn’t carry herself as confidently, either, seemingly resigned to being her sister’s runner-up.
Jael, the tallest in our group, had dark brown hair that she liked to wear in a tight braid. She was a warm person with a great sense of humor, and the two of us hit it off the moment we met. Like me, she had a bit of a paranoid side. We both understood predestination—that we were either hell-bound or we weren’t—but we had in the back of our minds that we could fall from grace at any instant. Jael was particularly worried about timing. She was convinced that God was returning any day now. If you’re not careful, He will come when you are in a bad spot, she’d say. That freaked me out. I’d say to myself, If the Lord comes tonight, I am doomed and going to hell forever. It was not that I had done anything in particular that was bad. I just didn’t think I was worthy of the glorious kingdom of heaven yet, whether I was elected or not.
My friends and I dressed like all the other teenagers at school. We shopped at the malls and wore clothes that were in style. Megan dressed more provocatively than the rest of us. Our mothers looked down on wearing anything revealing, tight, short, or low-cut, but in my opinion, Megan’s standards were questionable. Shirley never seemed aware that Megan’s clothes would have been unacceptable on another WBC girl. Megan would wear something kind of risqué and then would complain about the attention she got from boys, because she knew male attention was against the rules. All of us were as fashionable as the rest of the girls in our high school. Really, the only thing that distinguished us from the general population was the length of our hair.
I was surprised that the environment at school wasn’t as tense as I thought it would be. One reason was because our classmates had become somewhat desensitized to us. They’d have their chance to berate us when we took them on in our heated, biweekly school pickets, but otherwise they basically ignored us. Two lunch periods a week, the Phelps girls and I would go to Megan’s car, get our signs, and start our twenty-minute protest outside the school building. Everybody knew one another, so sometimes it was really odd. One minute, I’d be in math class sharing calculus problems with the kids in the class, and the next minute I’d be picketing with Megan, Bekah, and Jael, and our classmates would be flipping us off, cursing and yelling that God didn’t hate America, that God loved America. They’d call us whores and throw their lunch trash at us. I thought it was hilarious. They didn’t realize God was on our side. Afterward, we’d put our signs back in the car and head to our next class. The three days we weren’t picketing the high school, we went off campus for lunch. We never ate in the cafeteria, preferring to get fries and chicken nuggets at Burger King or Wendy’s rather than sit with everyone else.
The other reason there wasn’t much tension at school was that we were such capable students. The pastor’s grandchildren and I were all very academically inclined and always at the very top of the class. With well-rounded insights into lots of different subjects, we could not be accused of being brainwashed or being bumbling idiots. If anything, we were just the opposite.
I spent a lot of time on my homework, because getting good grades was a high priority. My dad would look over the papers and homework that Taylor and I had completed, making suggestions and corrections where he thought they were needed. Unlike the experience of many American teenagers, our culture actually embraced bragging about our accomplishments and our grades. We thrived on knowing the headlines in the news and talking about them in a way that was above everyone else in class, demonstrating how savvy and worldly we were. On the rare occasion that one of us did get a bad grade on an assignment, Shirley would come to the school and speak to the teacher about it, getting in his or her face.
From the time any Phelps kid entered kindergarten, she made sure every teacher they had knew who she was. When she complained, she used very litigious language. If she thought a child had been graded unfairly, she’d send e-mails, using the term “religious discrimination” to threaten lawsuits. Copies would go to every principal, superintendent, and school board member in the district. If we missed school for a picket and a teacher objected to our absence, Shirley would write a letter claiming religious discriminati
on on that occasion, too, and we would be officially excused. No teachers wanted to deal with her, although the ones in the elementary schools seemed more intimidated than the secondary school teachers. By then, most of them knew not to grade us lower because of our beliefs, because we were really good students in our own right.
The pastor also had a lot invested in our intelligence. He encouraged us to maintain large vocabularies and use advanced words in order to sound erudite. This way, when we were defending our views, people would look at us and say, “What is that word?” We were proud to be well-spoken in both biblical and secular matters. There was no way our detractors could say, “These people are uneducated.” The pastor groomed us to come across as reasonable, sensible, and intellectual. We were expected to maintain a very smart and professional demeanor, and then if anyone dared to say anything bad about us, we were always above them.
We were also very diligent about abiding by the school’s code of conduct. We were always on time to school. We never cut class or broke other rules. We weren’t drinkers, smokers, back-talkers, or delinquents. We certainly couldn’t be criticized for being lazy or underachieving, because we were hard-working and studious, and proud of it. There really wasn’t much about us that could make teachers mad, except for our religion.
Being with my girlfriends helped me start high school with confidence. I was smart, I had friends, and by virtue of being in the good graces of God and the Phelps family, I was entitled. Whenever I could forget my insecurities, I felt very blessed.
I knew I wanted to stay with the church. I felt superior and righteous by being involved, and so many people showed me support. The kids in my grade who flipped me off didn’t have any of the focus or understanding that I had. I was using my passion and energy to promote something grand and purposeful, something spiritual. I discounted anyone who said we were a cult. I knew about real cults and how they operated, quashing the free will of converts through brainwashing and isolation. But that didn’t apply to us. Plenty of people had strong religious convictions, and that didn’t mean they were part of a cult. I took my beliefs very seriously and was offended by mindless insults that used the word cult.
The teenagers in the WBC were not sheltered from the modern world. If anything, the older church members wanted us to be regular citizens of Topeka. We could hang out at the malls after school, go out to eat at restaurants, or go to the movies at night once in a while on a rare splurge. We were not forbidden to watch TV shows. In fact, when it came to the media, my parents probably did less censoring than more conventional parents, who were often afraid of the language and content in the network shows. My girlfriends and I enjoyed watching South Park on Comedy Central. We loved the show’s crudeness and its parodies of other religions, especially the episode that lampooned Scientology. I thought that the fact that we were teens who were out in the world and not tempted by evil proved to everyone that we were truly God’s example.
Sleepovers at Megan and Bekah’s house were the perfect times for us to follow our favorite sitcoms together. When we tired of television, sometimes we’d look through the latest Chevalier, Topeka West’s yearbook. Since I was so new there, it was even more exciting to see the kids I would be in class with. We loved looking at the cute boys and would pick out the one we thought was the cutest. Sometimes, we’d watch a movie and comment about the cute boys in the film, too. I didn’t like to share my opinion about who I thought was cute, though. I felt awkward when I did. I knew Megan and Bekah had the same urges that I had, even though we didn’t use terms that suggested anything about sex. We’d just giggle. I figured we were suppressing our hormones mostly for our parents, so that they wouldn’t look down on us if they ever found out.
It was a little bit confusing for me, though. I knew they were aware that my interest in boys was a gnawing, obsessive concern of my father’s. Yet here we were, fantasizing about boys. I desperately wanted to get it right, not talking too much about boys, but not scoffing over the idea that I was interested, either. I still wasn’t sure if Shirley’s daughters were hanging out with me as friends, or if they were spies; if they liked me, or they were just pretending to like me. I was paranoid about it. On occasion, things I told them privately came back to me through Shirley. Oh, my God, I would think. They’re telling on me. I never dared bring it up. I just wanted them to like me. The craziest part was, I was only doing the same things my friends were. All I really wanted was genuine approval from them.
It seemed no matter how pleased I was with my efforts and accomplishments, I wasn’t able to rid myself of my anxiety about my acceptance. I was truly enjoying reading the Bible and learning about the WBC’s beliefs. I had positive conversations with the pastor, Shirley, and my dad, and I felt like they were all proud of me. Yet, lying in my bed at night, I’d think about what else I could do to make myself perfect in the eyes of all those who judged me: my peers, my parents, and my God.
CHAPTER NINE
Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
—Luke 13:4–5
I had been in school for less than a month when one morning in class I heard that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, another had attacked the Pentagon, and a fourth plane had fallen into a field in Pennsylvania. The news seemed so surreal that nobody at school even reacted right away.
When the pastor saw the fire raining down from the sky after the attack on the World Trade Center, he saw the light about God’s true message. He was thoroughly convinced that God was sending a fair warning to sinners. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s catastrophic attack on U.S. soil was really a message from Him. “Look what God did,” he said triumphantly. The September 11 attacks were God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality. Gays were the reason God was so angry. His judgment against them was evident everywhere, even if the ignorant couldn’t connect the dots.
The pastor wanted to get to Ground Zero as fast as he could to share God’s message, and he assembled a group of five or six adults to fly to New York. My father went along as the videographer. When everyone got back to Kansas, he told me that the protests had been a huge success. He had captured great footage of the group standing in front of a row of police barriers and holding some of the church’s newest creations: THANK GOD FOR 9/11; TOWERS CRASH, GOD LAUGHS; NYPD FAGS; and FDNY SIN. The bottom of the last two signs had stick-figure pictograms of two men having anal sex. My father seemed so proud that the church had let the rescuers know that those who had been killed in the attacks had died because of God’s will. The church also planned to protest at the funeral of David Charlebois, a copilot on American Airlines Flight 77, which had crashed into the Pentagon. The pastor believed he was homosexual, and picketing homosexual funerals was a standard practice for the church. The military got word we were coming and kept Charlebois’s funeral plans under wraps just to keep us away.
The pastor’s hatred of homosexuality was long-simmering. He considered it to be the basis for all of God’s judgments against mankind. Of course God did horrible things to people on earth. Everybody was either a fag or a fag enabler, and homosexuality was the worst of all sins, the furthest a sinner could go from His grace. There was no hope for salvation for this population. They would burn in hell through eternity. The pastor often said he thought homosexuality should be a capital crime, often quoting Leviticus to demonstrate his point. In Leviticus 20:13, God said homosexuals “shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
The day of the attacks, my father sat in the printing room making picket signs that read THANK GOD FOR 9/11, and we started protesting in Topeka with our new signs the very next day. People hated the THANK GOD FOR 9/11 sign more than any other we had ever displayed. They hated that we were celebrating the deaths of ordinary Americans and delighting in their pain. The pastor, however, though
t it was about time the nation opened its eyes.
Standing on the street corner on September 12, I didn’t realize how much raw pain our message was causing. I hadn’t had a chance to step back and look at the big picture. I was so anxious to be accepted by everybody in the church that I focused on what they thought of me rather than how outsiders saw me. I was still trying to earn my father’s recognition and pride, as well. I didn’t think I had it yet, and if I couldn’t make him proud, I thought he would disown me. At the time, I was too young and childish to care about and consider the feelings of people I didn’t know.
That Friday, our church, like so many others across America, held a special program for September 11. The only difference was the other services around the country were held to mourn the dead, and ours was convened to praise God for his judgments. In the pastor’s sermon, he said, “Those calamities last Tuesday are none other than the wrath of God, smiting fag America…. How many do you suppose of those hundred and thirty soldiers died [sic] in the Pentagon last Tuesday were fags and dykes? And how many do you suppose were working in that massively composed building structure called those two World Trade Center buildings, Twin Towers? There were five thousand or ten thousand killed and, counting all those passengers in those airplanes, it’s very likely that every last single one of them was a fag or dyke or a fag enabler, and that the minute he died, he split hell wide open, and the way to analyze the situation is that the Lord God Almighty, pursuant to His threatenings and warnings, killed him, looked him in the face, laughed and mocked at each one of them as He cast each one of them into Hell!…
Banished : Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church (9781455518470) Page 12