1. Megan Phelps-Roper is a young woman who grew up within the Westboro Baptist Church. She grew up picketing gay mens funerals that had “God hates fags” (Chen 2) written on them, and she was told that anyone who disobeyed God or gave “place to rebellious thoughts was the first step down the path toward Hell (Chen 5). Growing up in the Church and having these ideals were seen as normal to Phelps-Roper, and anyone who went against them, she was told, was evil. She created a Twitter page to explain all that Westboro believes in, and she soon gained a lot of attention from followers to people messaging her. She becomes close with this one Jewish man, Abitbol, who has plenty of light-hearted conversations with Phelps-Roper about Westboro beliefs and how they affected other people. Along with Abitbol, she starts messaging a man with the name of C.G. and soon becomes romantically interested in him, going against Westboro ideals. It is while conversing with C.G. that Phelps-Roper starts to question the Church and realize there is more to life than being scared one will “feel God’s wrath” (Chen 15). After months of being treated improperly by the Church, she convinces her sister to move out and escape the life of the Church. Here, she grows public with her identity and her experiences being in Westboro. This allowed people to forgive her and understand her story, along with her feeling secure in the fact that God will no longer hurt her for her sins.
  1. Social media emboldened Phelps-Roper’s initial message as a spokesperson for Westboro Baptist Church because she was able to hide anonymously behind a screen. She could have conversations with strangers about Westboro beliefs, and post her opinion on something without receiving personal backlash due to the fact that she was anonymous. Chen states, “@F_K_A told Phelps-Roper to call him C.G. But C.G. remained a mystery”(Chen 11). Here, Chen gives an example of how the people Phelps-Roper was conversing with stayed anonymous and kept his identity secretive. Not only were the other people she was conversing with anonymous, but she was too.. It was not until after she escaped the Church that she decided to become public with her story and allow everyone to know her identity. According to Chen, “after so many years at the public face of Westboro, she wanted to go public with how she’d left the church, and to start making amends for the hurt she has caused”(Chen 15). Here she implies that she has hurt people, and by going public she wants people to understand that she did hurt them and she apologizes for it. Without her initial message over social media, Westboro would not be as known as it is today, yet, still a small hate driven, cult church.
  1. Phelps-Roper reacted differently to being confronted because it came from someone she trusted and genuinely enjoyed being around, causing her belief system to be influenced. Regular people would become upset with Westboro’s ideals and immediately think to threaten them by using vulgar language and violence, which one would normally be scared of and convert due to fear. Phelps-Roper was different in the sense that she never took any of the threats seriously in that she was always singing and dancing during protests. It was not until she met a man and became romantically interested in him that she became confused by her ideals. She was so invested in him that he was able to open her eyes to the idea that she was part of a cult, and that she was hurting other people by rejoicing tragedies. He never grew angry or harsh towards her, but always used a light-hearted tone and polite language with her. This allowed her to trust C.G. and let her guard down, making her vulnerable to his conversions. Her story explains that when confronting hate speech, one must not explode with emotions, but use a gentle, easy-going mood as it creates vulnerability. Meanwhile, redemption allowed Phelps-Roper to understand she was in denial and allowed the people she had hurt to forgive her and let her grow. 
  2. When you were young and fully immersed in the ideals of Westboro, did you ever, at any time you were in the Church or picketing feel as if it was wrong to be rejoicing dead people, or feel as if it was okay to support 9/11 or AIDS or any sort of destruction among the world? Did you ever think any destruction was not created by God, but something else?