The Most Hated Family in America
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| The Most Hated Family in America | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Genre | Documentary |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Directed by | Geoffrey O'Connor |
| Starring | Louis Theroux Shirley Phelps-Roper Steve Drain |
| Country of origin |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Release date(s) | March 2007 |
| IMDb profile | |
The Most Hated Family in America is a TV documentary written and presented by the BBC's Louis Theroux about the family at the heart of the Westboro Baptist Church.
At the heart of the documentary is the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a U.S. church group headed by Fred Phelps and based in Topeka, Kansas. It runs the website GodHatesFags.com,[1] and GodHatesAmerica.com, and other websites expressing condemnation of homosexuals, Roman Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Sweden, Ireland, Canada, and other groups. The organization is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League,[2] and classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[3][4] The group has achieved national notoriety in recent years due to its picketing of funeral processions of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The church bases its work around the belief expressed by its best known slogan and the address of its primary website, "God hates fags", and expresses the opinion, based on its Biblical interpretation, that nearly every tragedy in the world is God's punishment for homosexuality – specifically society's increasing tolerance and acceptance of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. It maintains that God hates homosexuals above all other kinds of "sinners"[5] and that homosexuality should be a capital crime.[6]
Louis Theroux stated that the Phelpses are the most extreme people he has ever met.[7]
[edit] Louis Theroux
In an interview on the BBC website, Theroux gave his opinion on the teachings of Fred Phelps.[8]
I think that the pastor is not a very nice person. I think he's an angry person who's twisted the Bible and picked and chosen verses that support his anger, that sort of justify his anger, and he's instilled that in his children and they've passed it on to their children. Although the second and third generation are by and large quite nice people from what I saw, they still live under the influence of their Gramps.
Apart from their hateful protests, Theroux found them to be quite kind.
It shows you what strange avenues the religious impulse can take you down. I think another part of the answer is that parts of the Christian Bible are pretty weird. There's a lot of weird stuff in there and when you take that and you add this angry, domineering kind of a father figure, which is Gramps, and you add that he has sort of separated them off from other people, other families and driven them to achieve a lot, and he was kind of a charismatic guy, and still is up to a point. He was a very verbal, very persuasive, an extremely compelling speaker. All these things added together combined to make a powerful influence.
After Fred Phelps viewed the film, he preached a sermon in April 2007 attacking Theroux, calling him "Screwy Louis" and a "jackass."[9]
[edit] References
- ^ "GodHatesFags.com"
- ^ Anti-Defamation League (2006). Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. Retrieved on 2007-02-23.
- ^ Southern Poverty Law Center." The Year in Hate:2005". Accessed 5 October 2006.
- ^ Southern Poverty Law Center. Active U.S. Hate Groups in 2005. Accessed 5 October 2006.
- ^ "Westboro Baptist Church FAQ".
- ^ "Outlaw Sodomy", December 3, 2002
- ^ The Most Hated Family in America BBC News. Published on 30-03-07. Retrieved on 10-10-07.
- ^ The Most Hated Family in America BBC News. Published on 30-03-07. Retrieved on 10-10-07.
- ^ Louis Theroux, Demon-Possessed BBC Documentary Maker GodHatesFags.com. Published on the April 8, 2007.
