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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSon of Fred Phelps speaks out about abusive father...
Source: Salon.com
By Dick Gordon
Son of a bigot
Nate Phelps is the sixth of Freds 13 children, and he has the scars to show for it. He describes his father as verbally and physically abusive. When he was 18, Nate ran away from home and from the fundamentalist Calvinist religion in which he was raised.
<SNIP> How did your father explain that to you? That you were one of Gods chosen ones and yet he could mistreat you?
He was able to justify using verses out of the Bible. That was a major criteria for him. If he could find an excuse for it, then it was OK to do it, because God gave him permission. As far as how he justified the idea that we were different from the rest of the world, he made much of the ideas that he found in the Bible about the nature of what God expected of us, that extreme Calvinist ideology that is at the cornerstone of their campaign. The fact that other groups had it wrong or got this or that doctrine wrong was proof that God didnt find favor with them.
As far as the physical violence, thats a fairly common idea that exists in fundamentalist Christianity, that the husband is the head of the house and has absolute authority and has the right to bring his wife and children into submission if they arent.
And when you talk about the physical violence was it something that was spontaneous or routine? How do you remember?
It was both. I mean there were some things that you just knew if he found out about it there was gonna be trouble. There was also this tendency to explode without any warning and that actually was far more destructive in the long run because you just never knew, and thats more terrifying than cause-and-effect.
Did he use his belt or a cane, what was his ?
When we were younger it was a barber strap. That thing got so shredded at the ends that it would wrap around the sides of our legs and tear the skin. It was kind of like a cat o nine tails. When I was about 8 or 9 he introduced us to a Mattock handle, which is a farming instrument or tool that you use to pull up roots, and its got an axe head on one end and a hoe head on the other end. Its big. You know, take a baseball bat, add maybe 30 percent to that.
What, hed have you bend over a chair or what did he do?
Yeah, and then he would beat us anywhere from the lower part of our back down to behind our knees and he swung it hard, he swung it like a baseball bat. And oftentimes what would happen is there would be eight or 10 strokes and then he would go into a 10- or 15-minute screaming session with what we were doing wrong and how it was defying God and that we were evil. You know all of these religious-based threats and insults to the children and then hed go back to the beating and by then the skin has stretched tight from the damage. So the next blows would just split the skin and so youd get blood.
Would your father choose to do this in front of your other brothers and sisters?
No, it was very public. It couldnt help but be public because there was so much noise and ranting, everybody in the house knew that he was on a tear. And sometimes when it got really bad my mom would try to intervene and then he would go after her and beat her for that. He used all of these strategies that appeared to be very deliberate. He required the older boys to start administering the beatings themselves, and if they didnt do it properly then they would get beat from him because they werent hitting hard enough or doing it as he would do it. And that was kind of a pattern he used even with the passing on of the message that he taught. He didnt just settle for making sure we knew it. He required us to present it the way he did. <SNIP>
<SNIP>Were you obliged to be a part of the public protests he would do, whether it was picketing funerals or homosexuals?
He didnt start the God hates fags campaign until after I left. But throughout our childhood there was that inclination toward conflict with neighbors and community members, and he absolutely required of us, whatever form it took, as well as this putting the word out there that everybody in the world was going to hell, that had to be presented with the same kind of vitriolic fury that he did it, or then wed end up getting in trouble if we werent vicious enough. Without a doubt you dont have an option in that environment, and Im quite certain thats still the case that those kids that are out there, the young ones and even the teenagers, theyre not necessarily there because they want to be, they have to be there.<SNIP>
ARTICLE IN IT'S ENTIRETY
Hell Hath No Fury
(16,327 posts)plain ol' child abuse? I think any remaining children need to be removed from that house ASAP.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)while the whole family gets some decent psychotherapy.
MuseRider
(34,105 posts)This is not the first time he has spoken.
I am just waiting for their next thing. The God Hates Soldiers and Thank God For IED's is not getting them what they want anymore. What could be next? Mark my word, it will be something because attention is waning.
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)I just wish there was a hell so Fred Phelps would burn in it.
ismnotwasm
(41,975 posts)I love that there were Gay people reaching out to him, and he responded by thinking he could do some good, in spite of the damage his father causes.
MuseRider
(34,105 posts)and spoke for us (KEC) and with us and participated in a rally.
raccoon
(31,110 posts)Bake
(21,977 posts)I expect he's getting a first-hand experience of Hell.
Bake
raccoon
(31,110 posts)Bake
(21,977 posts)Bake
Blue Belle
(5,912 posts)was that his son was so want to get away from Fred Phelps that he slept on the floor of a gas station bathroom for 3 days. Seriously. The owners would loack him in there at night. Now think about the last gas station bathroom you were in...
That poor man. I'm so glad he didn't let anger overtake him (unlike his dad) and has moved on to do better things with his life.
DCKit
(18,541 posts)The religiously fundamental don't only hate empowered women.
Blue Belle
(5,912 posts)that must be awful for you.
DCKit
(18,541 posts)What's left behind is not as important as what I've got. I guess I miss that, but my new family is more important to me and my S.O. is a rock.
When we're through with the current estate issues, I'm going to shed a few more siblings, and I don't think I'll find that at all difficult.
You're right in that it shouldn't have to happen, but it does. I would love to have them all around for traditional Xmases, but the majority have become teabaggers and I can't take listening to their B.S. for more than a minute or so. If they were grown up enough to admit their racism and homophobia, I could probably get over it, but they can't. Obama is the root of all evil, and they won't say why they feel that way.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)Though I know first hand, not all of us escape hell so successfully.
While my mom wasn't as creative with the weaponry (when we were really little wooden spoons worked until we got smart enough to give them to the dog to chew up & belts were for as we got a bit older) she was vicious.
Of course most of the nightmare stuff didn't go on while my dad was around which is probably why I was so thrilled when he was home.
Sadly my brothers fared worse than I and one lives in the bottle and the other is on the junk.
Abuse costs society dearly, not to mention the victims.
Julie