The Phelps Family

Louis Theroux: The Most Hated Family in America
(Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kansas)

In an interview on the BBC website, Theroux gave his opinion on the teachings of Fred Phelps.

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 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.

Source: Wikipedia

See also: "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" - counterpointed by religious extremists, and The Phelps Family.