1. Write a brief summary, using your words and direct quotes, of Megan Phelps-Roper’s personal transformation, as described in Chen’s piece. Be sure to include 2-3 direct quotes, framed properly. Choose quotes that help illuminate changes Phelps-Roper experienced along the way.

In the beginning of the story Phelps is described as one of active leaders of a church hate group that sounds very similar to the charles manson family or the Jamestown cult. The way that Phelps mainly chose to get her hate messages across was through social media, specifically twitter and she also went to many protests called pickets to support and emphasize her beliefs. The way that she is depicted in the beginning honestly leaves you feeling like she is just a “Batshit crazy gay hater” But by the end of the story you see her as human and have compassion for the way that she was brainwashed her whole life to believe those things. As stated in the text “she had been taught the church’s vision of God’s truth since birth.” Phelps’ transformation begins when she is older and begins to realize that terrible events were not meant to give you thrill and that they were viewed very differently outside her community. The first event that made her feel different than before was when the Actress Brittany Murphy died and she “couldn’t bring herself to post a tweet thanking god for Murphy’s death”. The next moment that made her severely question her own faith was when her online friend Abitbol brought up a sign that phelps was holding at a protest that stated “death penalty for fags” and he said that “if gay people were killed they wouldnt have the opportunity to repent.” Phelps was struck by the double standard and began to ask her mother questions and when her mothers answers did not satisfy and she still concluded that westboro was wrong she “came to a place where I disagreed, I knew I disagreed, and I didnt accept the answer that they gave.” I feel that from this moment forth she began to have serious doubts about her faith. But the fInal straw was when the elders took over after Shirley’s role in the church was reduced dramatically for her “lacking humility, being too zealous in correcting other members behavior and overreaching her authority”.  Phelps wrote that “the church became more secretive and it suddenly sucked to be a woman. The elders acted arrogantly and tolerated no dissent”. Phelps became embarrassed by the church and their actions and said “I couldn’t bring myself to do the things they were doing and say the things they were saying” and she came up with a plan for her and her little sister Megan to leave the church. They agonized over whether they should leave or not but they eventually did and no one tried to stop them. When they got out it was hard for the sisters. They “were a mess, crying all the time” But eventually they found their way and “wherever Megan and Grace went they met people who wanted to help them despite all the hurt they had caused”. Phelps roper met up with her online friend C.G and they eventually got married and had kids. Megan and Grace’s younger brother Zach also left the church later on. 

2. In your opinion, how did social media embolden Phelps-Roper’s initial message as a spokesperson for Westboro Baptist Church? How did interactions via social media influence her drastic shift in personal belief? Use at least two direct quotes, framed with help from our discussion/slides on Quote/the Quote Sandwichmethod, to support your claims.

Social media emboldens Phelps Roper’s initial messages because it gave her the ability to reach more people than she ever would have been able to before even with the constant picketing. It allowed her to spread hate through mass communication and she was addicted to having her beliefs known and heard. She spent so much of her time replying to angry tweets and thought that the attention that she was getting meant that “Westboro’s message was well suited to social media” But as she started making more meaningful connections with people online she became interested in trying to understand others beliefs and actually listening to some of the critiques people were pointing out to her. Which made her begin to question her faith.  

3. “Anybody’s initial response to being confronted with the sort of stuff Westboro Baptist Church says is to tell them to f*** off,” said blogger David Abitbol (Chen 79). But it was less-aggressive communication styles that “got through” to Phelps-Roper, that in part influenced her to reconsider her belief system. What style(s) of conversation (consider message, tone, perspective) had the most impact on Phelps-Roper? What might her story teach us about confronting hate speech? What about redemption?

The tone that Abitbol had was one of a friend. His automatic reaction was not to look down on her and hate her but he wanted to try to understand her and how she had come to believe the things she did and he genuinely wanted to have her understand him and were he was coming from as well. It is hard to listen to someone when you are trying to get your own point across but that is what had to happen. In this case there had to be active listening and understanding from both parties and that is what got Phelps to open up and reconsider her own beliefs. 

4. If you were to meet Phelps-Roper today, what question would you want to ask her and why?

I would wanna ask her if her mom Shirely had stayed in power and the elders never took over, does she think she still would have come to the same conclusion and left the church or not? I would wanna ask her this because I feel like there was favoritism in the church and since her family was at the top of the hierarchy this made it take longer for Phelps to see the wrong doing. I also would wanna ask her if she never had access to social media platforms does she still think that she could have come to the same conclusion and left the church.