Story by Jeffrey Ann Goudie
Anyone who has lived in Topeka since 1991 will be familiar with Westboro Baptist Church’s homophobic pickets. These once-ubiquitous protests garner less publicity now, but their power to intimidate in the early 1990s—long before legalized same-sex marriage and the evolution of public opinion and policy regarding the LGBTQ community—can’t be overstated.
As a newspaper columnist, first for the Topeka Capital-Journal, and later for the Topeka Metro News, I wrote critically about Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) and found myself a target of the church’s venom. Members of the Phelps family—nearly the entire church congregation was part of a single extended family—sent out personalized, graphic and profane faxes.
Over the years, criticism of the WBC grew, and it was officially recognized as a hate group by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League. The WBC’s picketing of military funerals also caused national outrage and prompted multiple municipal and state lawmakers to enact laws protecting mourners from being directly confronted by the WBC demonstrations. There were also defections from within the WBC family, and I was delighted when, in 2015, Megan Phelps-Roper reached out to me and my husband, writer Tom Averill (also a target of WBC faxes), through Eric McHenry, a Washburn University English professor. Over pizza at a local restaurant, Megan and her younger sister Grace asked how the faxes and pickets affected us. I understood that they were seeking to understand people once considered enemies.
Later, I learned from Eric that Megan had written a powerful memoir about leaving the church; she was in negotiations with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a New York house that also has published former Topekans Ling Ma, Ben Lerner, and Cyrus Console. A possible movie deal was also in the works.
The movie has yet to emerge, but the book Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, was released in 2019 and tells—in clear, thoughtful and candid prose—the story of Phelps-Roper’s loving but harsh childhood and adolescence in the fundamentalist church. She writes of her awakening to the hurt the church’s hate-mongering messages inflicted, especially as the group began to picket the soldiers’ funerals. Twitter served as an eye-opener when Phelps-Roper jousted with outsiders, most notably a Jewish blogger, and later, with a lawyer who became her husband.
Phelps-Roper now lives in a small South Dakota town with her husband and their daughter. She graciously agreed to answer a dozen questions about Unfollow on the heels of a whirlwind tour of the book.
Jeffrey Ann Goudie (JAG): As a Topekan who witnessed the pickets of the Westboro Baptist Church, and who was the subject of faxes as a newspaper columnist who wrote critically about the church, I found the first part of Unfollow hard to read. This is another way of saying that the writing is quite authentic. When you begin to flirt with the outside world, I breathed easier as a reader. Was the first part of the book harder to write than later parts?
Megan Phelps-Roper (MPR): It was definitely harder. I still experience an intense “split-screen” effect when I think about my years growing up: I remember what it felt like as I lived it, when I understood Westboro to be righteous and essentially unquestionable—but I am also often appalled and flabbergasted to reconsider our actions now as an “outsider.” It’s disorienting to feel both a sense of complete normalcy and horrifying regret about the same set of actions.
JAG: Your mother, Shirley Phelps-Roper, and your aunt, Margie Phelps, certainly did not conform to the Old Testament model of the submissive wife. At one point you refer to your mom and “her power-walking sisters.” How was it growing up with these strong women?
MPR: In spite of all the hurtful things I learned at Westboro, I am profoundly grateful to have been surrounded by so many strong, capable women. A huge part of the strength it took for me to leave the church was derived from the example of those women. They knew what they were about; they were passionate and dedicated; they played to their strengths, and they were—for many years—the loudest voices at Westboro. It was empowering and inspirational for me.
JAG: You and your eleven siblings attended Topeka Public Schools rather than being home-schooled. Likewise, you were not shielded from access to movies, books, television, music and other popular media. How did this pop culture exposure affect your development?
MPR: For a long time, I thought it didn’t affect me much at all, because I had viewed everything and everyone through the lens that Westboro had given me (which is to say, it never made me consciously question the church). I recognize now, though, that that exposure was important—because it showed me what was possible. It wasn’t until I started questioning the church’s doctrines that I started to re-think my view of outsiders and their ideas. But if I’d never had that exposure in the first place, I wouldn’t have had viable alternatives readily available to help me find a different perspective.
JAG: You became the social media voice for WBC at an early age. You seemed to enjoy swimming in the snark-infested waters of Twitter. What is your current thinking about Twitter?
MPR: I was 23 when I joined Twitter, and I did love it. I still believe that we can choose to engage on the platform with more empathy and consideration—that it can still be a place for genuine connection with strangers—but because of the way outrage and cancel culture function on the internet now, it’s much harder to have public conversations on any sort of difficult topic. We have to find a way to cultivate generosity with respect to how we interpret the words of people with whom we disagree.
JAG: You made a brave decision to leave the confines of WBC because of the unfair treatment of your mother and your sister, Grace. A former high school teacher served as a friendly sounding board and guardrail during this period. Could you describe his influence?
MPR: I could not be more grateful for Keith Newbery. I had him for one class at Topeka West High School, but because of the way he treated me— fairly, kindly, generously, unafraid to openly discuss Westboro—I understood that he had good intentions. His openness bred trust, and when I left the church, his friendship was so much more than I could have hoped for. He directed me to books and ideas to broaden my perspective, helped me see where Westboro’s thinking was tripping me up, and gave me a safe place to express myself without judgment. Friend, mentor, therapist, and very funny—Newbery filled a lot of roles.
JAG: Who are your other mentors?
MPR: There are several—people I met while at Westboro and new friends I’ve made since leaving—but another essential mentor is Eric McHenry, a professor at Washburn University. He’s an incredibly thoughtful person who has a deep understanding of Westboro and its history in Topeka. That knowledge and experience give him a unique perspective that has helped me in many ways, and Unfollow wouldn’t exist without his encouragement and assistance in writing about all of it.
JAG: Has there been any reaction to Unfollow from your family members, or other members of WBC?
MPR: There has been some reaction from WBC, all negative of course. I’ve even been the subject of a Westboro fax myself recently. I expected the negative words, of course, but I’m heartened by a brief conversation I had with my uncle (a Westboro elder) on Twitter, which included a small admission that they may have done some things wrong. It may seem small, but that acknowledgment gives me hope.
JAG: What is it like to return to Topeka now that you are no longer allowed to visit your family at the WBC compound?
MPR: It used to be almost exclusively painful and awkward. It’s still both of those things, but to a much lesser degree—and those feelings sit alongside a much deeper appreciation of Topeka than I ever had while I was at WBC. I miss life there sometimes, not just my life at Westboro but the city itself, and many people who live there. I just found myself typing, “I enjoy coming home now.” I think I’ll always think of Topeka as home.
JAG: Your future husband seemed to take a very cautious approach when you started expressing to him your desire to leave the church. How was this helpful to you?
MPR: It was important that I come to my conclusions on my own—that I be intentional and deliberate and learn to stand on my own two feet. I had never had any real independence at Westboro, never really had to do my own thinking, and it was a skill I desperately needed to learn.
JAG: When you first fled the church, you and your sister immersed yourselves in books. How did books help you in the aftermath of leaving the church?
MPR: Books helped me in all the ways that they help everyone: They give us a broader sense of other people’s experiences and help us see ourselves in them. They help us to feel like we’re not alone. They give us language to articulate things we’ve felt but didn’t have words for—and may not have even been totally conscious of. They offer us different ways of understanding and interpreting the world. Books are everything.
JAG: Have you been surprised by the attention your book has received, with reviews in the New York Times Book Review and on NPR, among others, and an interview on Terry Gross’s “Fresh Air”?
MPR: I have been floored by the responses I’ve been getting. I never expected anyone to care much, and it has been so gratifying to think anyone would take the time to read and think about my book—let alone give it space in these incredible outlets.
JAG: What is life like for you now as mother of a toddler in a tiny town in South Dakota?
MPR: It’s still hard to believe my life is what it is now. I spent a long time thinking that I’d never get married or have children, and I think that’s made me appreciate my husband and daughter to an utterly overwhelming degree. It also amazes me that I have any real control over my life at all; I always joke that I still get excited to go to the grocery store without permission, and it’s still true!