Tolerance Wins Over Hate as Sisters Leave the Westboro Baptist Church

http://www.politicususa.com/tolerance-wins-hate-sisters-leave-wesboro-baptist-church.html

By: Sarah JonesFeb. 7th, 2013more from Sarah Jones

The granddaughters of Fred Phelps, Megan Phelps-Roper and her younger sister Grace Phelps-Roper, have left the hate group known as the Topeka, Kansas congregation of the Westboro Baptist Church. The sisters issued a statement Wednesday in which they revealed that they recently left the WBC.

The Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for their protests at the funerals of fallen soldiers’, desecrating the American flag, and threatening to protest the funeral of the Newtown Principal — all in the name of gay hate. Megan Phelps-Roper had been serving as the face of the organization over the last several years.

The sisters posted a statement on social media Wednesday titled, “Head Full of Doubt / Road Full of Promise” in which they wrote, “We know that we’ve done and said things that hurt people. Inflicting pain on others wasn’t the goal, but it was one of the outcomes. We wish it weren’t so and regret that hurt.”

In choosing to leave the WBC, the sisters have also lost their families. They write, “They now consider us betrayers, and we are cut off from their lives, but we know they are well-intentioned. We will never not love them.

Megan Phelps-Roper told Jeff Chu of The Guardian that the seeds of doubt over her views were sown during conversations with an Israeli web developer, in which he pointed out that Jesus wanted people to have the opportunity to repent:

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Out here in the real world, the sisters are finding more of their old views debunked as well. Megan Phelps-Roper told The Star, “We’ve really appreciated the supportive words people have shared with us today. The environment we grew up in was very ‘us vs. them’; it’s been nice to see that the ‘them’ have been overwhelmingly kind — as we’d kind of hoped and suspected.”

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