Lauren Drain, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, has revealed that maybe the reason for the church’s founder, Fred Phelps’ hatred of homosexuals could be that he has gay experience himself.
Drain, 27, who has recently published her book, Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church, said that Phelps’s anti-gay ideology may have spawned from a gay experience during his teen years.
Drain, who was a member of the congregation in Topeka, Kan., had to leave the congregation because she challenged their beliefs.
According to Drain, Phelps was a member of the Boy Scouts who wanted to join the military but, suddenly, at the age of 17, he changed his mind and instead became a preacher hell bent on fighting against “sexual immorality.”
Although Drain says she never had the chance to discuss these events with Phelps personally, she believes that it had something to do with a gay experience. Drain continues that when Phelps was asked by the media, “Why are you so against the homosexuals? Did you have a homosexual experience? Do you have homosexual tendencies?” Phelps would get really mad and say, “I can’t talk to this person anymore, they’re stupid.”
Because of Phelps reaction to questions about his own sexuality, it gave Drain the idea that he may have had a gay experience.
Drain has now become a advocate for gay rights. In February she posed for the NOH8 campaign, a movement that promotes equality. “I don’t think anyone should judge or persecute another human being or any group of individuals based off of those personal, chosen, beliefs,” she told NOH8. “I am against any and all forms of violence, discrimination, bullying or bigotry directed at someone else due to their personal lifestyle.”
Drain also said that Phelps has managed to brainwash his constituents into believing as he does. She said that more members are questioning the beliefs and are leaving or getting kicked out.
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