Editor's note: To accurately portray the subject of this article and his critics, offensive language is quoted.
(CNN) -- He is the leader of "America's most hated family," a gaunt, craggy-faced preacher who displays "God Hates Fags" signs at the funerals of American troops, gay men and AIDS victims.
For at least 12 years, the Rev. Fred Phelps has led his Topeka, Kansas, church on a cross-country crusade against gays and lesbians. That crusade ignited a legal battle that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
But there is another Phelps that few know. He was a "brilliant" civil rights attorney in the 1960s who would take on racial discrimination cases that no other lawyers would touch, say longtime African-American civic leaders in Topeka.
He fought for the rights of blacks, they say, with the same passion he now reserves for the condemnation of gays.
"I don't know him anymore," says Joe Douglas Jr., an African-American activist in Topeka who became the city's first minority fire department chief.
"I see him out there, and I hear the venom that comes out of his mouth. If you had asked me in the '60s if he would do this, I would have said never."
The Rev. Ben Scott, president of the NAACP's Topeka branch, says he never heard Phelps talk about homosexuals during his work as a civil rights attorney.
"I didn't even know he was a preacher," Scott says.
--Joe Douglas Jr. on Fred Phelps
Phelps declined to talk with CNN about his civil rights work or his ministry. But his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, says there is no contradiction between her father's civil rights work and his ministry. That's because there's a distinct difference between gay people and black people, she says.
"You're born black. It's something you can't change even if you're Michael Jackson," she says. "God never said it was an abomination to be black."
How Phelps' message reached the U.S. Supreme Court
Most of the members of Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church are members of his large family. Phelps has 13 children; 11 are attorneys. One son, Nate Phelps, is estranged from his father, and from organized religion. He is an atheist.
"He preached that we were the chosen ones but then he went out and treated people horribly," Nathan Phelps says.
His father first attracted national headlines in 1998 at the funeral ofMatthew Shepard, a Wyoming college student. Shepard was tortured and murdered for being gay. Fred Phelps and his church picketed Shepard's funeral, carrying signs that said Shepard was rotting in hell.
In 2006, members of Phelps' church appeared at the funeral of an American Marine killed in Iraq carrying signs reading "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and shouting at mourners.
Phelps' church claims the deaths are God's punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
The family of the Marine sued Phelps' church the next year, alleging invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy. The case went to trial and a jury awarded the family $2.9 million in compensatory damages plus $8 million in punitive damages, which were reduced to $5 million.
That verdict, however, was reversed when Phelps' church appealed. In March, Supreme Court justices accepted an appeal from the father of the fallen Marine. The court is being asked to address how far entities such as cemeteries and churches can go in restricting demonstrators' right to free speech.
Phelps' 'brilliant' civil rights career
In Topeka, longtime civil rights activists say they were accustomed to seeing Phelps fight another type of battle in the courts.
By the time Phelps moved to Topeka in 1954, it had become the launching ground for the modern civil rights movement. That was the year the U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in public schools with its historic Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education decision.
Jack Alexander, a Topeka native and civil rights activist, says the Brown decision opened the door for discrimination suits. Phelps would take cases in the 1960s that other lawyers, black and white, wouldn't touch, he says.
"Back in that era, most black attorneys were busy trying to make a living," says Alexander, who attended Topeka's high school when the Brown case was filed and went on to become the first black person elected to Topeka's water commission.
"They couldn't take those cases on the chance they wouldn't get paid. But Fred was taking those cases."
Phelps was so successful that he became the first lawyer blacks would call when they thought they were being discriminated against, says the NAACP's Scott.
"Most blacks -- that's who they went to," Scott says. "I don't know if he was cheaper or if he had that stick-to-it-ness, but Fred didn't lose many back then."
Douglas, the Topeka civil rights activist and former fire chief, says Phelps was such a "brilliant attorney" that he made enemies.
"He made a fortune on all those cases," Douglas says. "All the businesses hated him because he was so successful. I think if they discriminated against Martians, he would have done those cases. He could make money."
Douglas says he had no clue then about Phelps' attitude toward gays and lesbians.
--Shirley Phelps-Roper, Phelps' daughter
"He didn't even talk about that," Douglas says. "As long as I've known him, I never heard him discuss it, but now it's his whole life."
Phelps' daughter says her father took up civil rights cases because of his upbringing. Phelps was born in the Deep South during segregation.
"He grew up in Mississippi seeing the way they treated black people," Phelps-Roper says.
Her father didn't adopt the same racist beliefs only "because of the mercy of God."
Having people hate them is nothing new for Phelps and his family, she says. People shot out their windows and threatened her father because he stood up for blacks in Kansas.
After her father delivered an editorial on local television one night bemoaning white racism, she says, the phone rang.
"When I picked up that phone, somebody is screaming nigger lover in my ear," she says. "That sticks with you. That's not the first time nor the last time I heard that."
Phelps was disbarred in 1979 by the Kansas Supreme Court after he became the subject of a complaint alleging witness badgering. The court wrote: "The seriousness of the present case coupled with his previous record leads this court to the conclusion that respondent has little regard for the ethics of his profession."
Phelps-Roper contends her father was disbarred in Kansas state court for standing up for blacks.
"Those people hated us for that work," she says. "The state hated us for it. They could hardly bring themselves to be civil because we won those verdicts."
Was Phelps motivated by idealism or money?
Phelps' critics now despise him for another reason -- his anti-gay activism.
It has earned him so much notoriety that he is internationally known. In 2007, the BBC produced a documentary on Phelps and his church entitled "The Most Hated Family in America."
Phelps' anti-gay pickets continue even though his case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The family plans to visit Atlanta, Georgia, starting Wednesday for two days of protests, including one at a Jewish community center and a playhouse staging a production in honor of Shepard, the slain gay college student.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremist organizations, has classified Phelps' church as a hate group. It calls Phelps America's most notorious anti-gay activist.
Mark Potok, a center spokesman, says Phelps uses anti-Semitic language in the fliers and tracts he dispatches from his church today.
"I don't think he gives a damn about civil rights; maybe he once did," Potok says. "Whatever atom of sympathy he had for the civil rights movement is clearly gone now."
Nate Phelps, the estranged son, says his father held racist attitudes even during his work as a civil rights attorney.
He says his father didn't believe blacks were equal to whites, and often insulted blacks out of earshot.
"They would come into his office and after they left, he would talk about how stupid they were and call them dumb niggers," Phelps says.
But Phelps-Roper, Nathan's sister, says their father was no racist. She says that Potok doesn't know her father. And she calls her brother Nathan a "rebel of God." She says her father didn't use racist language and Nathan wouldn't have been in a position to know.
"Nathan is a tortured soul," she says. "He has no grace. God had no mercy upon him. He's hardened his heart."
Phelps-Roper says her father and family have eked out a modest living and her father's church doesn't take money from anyone.
God said the world would hate believers like her father in the last hours, she says.
People may judge her father; the courts may do the same. But she says in an e-mail message filled with scriptural references that she is waiting for another judgment.
"This nation is on a short path to her full, final and complete destruction!" Phelps-Roper says. "It will be beautiful and it will be righteous.
Nota del editor: Para exponer con precisión el tema de este artículo y sus críticos, lenguaje ofensivo es citado.
(CNN) - Es el líder de "la familia más odiada de América", un flaco, con cara de predicador escarpadas que muestra "Dios odia a maricones" signos en los funerales de soldados estadounidenses, los hombres homosexuales y las víctimas del SIDA.
Por lo menos 12 años, el reverendo Fred Phelps ha llevado a su Topeka, en Kansas, la iglesia en una cruzada entre países contra los gays y las lesbianas. Esa cruzada desató una batalla legal que ha llegado a los EE.UU. Corte Suprema.
Pero hay otro Phelps que pocos conocen. Él era un "brillante" abogado de derechos civiles en la década de 1960 que tendría sobre los casos de discriminación racial que no tocaría a otros abogados, por ejemplo desde hace mucho tiempo los líderes cívicos afro-americano en Topeka.
Luchó por los derechos de los negros, dicen, con la misma pasión que ahora se reserva para la condena de los homosexuales.
"Yo no lo conozco nunca más", dice Joe Douglas Jr., un activista afro-americano que se convirtió en Topeka de la ciudad de incendios primera minoría jefe de departamento.
"Lo veo por ahí, y oigo el veneno que sale de su boca. Si me hubieran preguntado si en los años 60 que iba a hacer esto, nunca habría dicho.
El reverendo Ben Scott, presidente de la NAACP rama Topeka, dice que nunca oyó hablar acerca de los homosexuales Phelps durante su trabajo como abogado de derechos civiles.
"Yo ni siquiera sabía que él era un predicador", dice Scott.
- Joe Douglas Jr. en Fred Phelps
Phelps se negó a hablar con la cadena CNN acerca de sus derechos civiles trabajo o su ministerio. Pero su hija, Shirley Phelps-Roper, dice que no hay contradicción entre los derechos civiles de su padre y su ministerio de trabajo. Eso es porque hay una clara diferencia entre los homosexuales y las personas negro, dice ella.
"Naces negro. Es algo que no puede cambiar, incluso si usted es Michael Jackson", dice ella. "Dios nunca dijo que era una abominación que es negro."
¿Cuánto mensaje de Phelps llegó a los EE.UU. Corte Suprema
La mayoría de los miembros de la Iglesia Westboro Phelps Bautista son miembros de su numerosa familia. Phelps tiene 13 hijos, 11 son abogados. Uno de los hijos, Nate Phelps, está separado de su padre, y de la religión organizada. El es un ateo.
"Él predicó que éramos los elegidos, pero luego salió y trató a la gente horrible", dice Nathan Phelps.
Su padre primero atrajo a los titulares nacionales en 1998 en el funeral de Matthew Shepard , un estudiante de universidad de Wyoming. Shepard fue torturado y asesinado por ser gay. Fred Phelps y su iglesia el funeral de Shepard piquetes, portando carteles que decían Shepard estaba pudriendo en el infierno.
En 2006, los miembros de la iglesia de Phelps apareció en el funeral de una marina estadounidenses muertos en Irak con pancartas que decían "Gracias a Dios por los soldados muertos" y gritando a los dolientes.
la iglesia de Phelps afirma que las muertes son castigo de Dios por la tolerancia de la nación de la homosexualidad.
La familia del infante de marina demandó a la iglesia de Phelps el próximo año, basado en la invasión de la privacidad, provocación intencional de angustia emocional y conspiración civil. El caso fue a juicio y un jurado le otorgó a la familia $ 2,9 millones en daños compensatorios y $ 8 millones en daños punitivos, que se redujeron a 5.000.000 dólares.
Ese veredicto, sin embargo, se revirtió cuando "la iglesia Phelps apelada. En marzo, la Corte Suprema de jueces había aceptado un recurso del padre de los caídos de Marina. El tribunal se le está pidiendo a la dirección en qué medida las entidades como los cementerios y las iglesias pueden ir en la restricción de «derecho de los manifestantes a la libertad de expresión.
"Brillante Phelps 'los derechos civiles de carrera
En Topeka, el veterano activistas de derechos civiles dicen que estaban acostumbrados a ver Phelps luchar otro tipo de batalla en los tribunales.
En el momento en Phelps se trasladó a Topeka en 1954, se había convertido en el terreno de lanzamiento para el movimiento moderno de derechos civiles. Ese fue el año los EE.UU. Corte Suprema prohibió la segregación en las escuelas públicas con su histórica Brown vs Board of Education de Topeka decisión.
Jack Alexander, un nativo de Topeka y activista de derechos civiles, dice que la decisión de Brown abrió la puerta a demandas por discriminación. Phelps tomaría casos en la década de 1960 que los abogados de otros, blanco y negro, no quería tocar, dice.
"En esa época, los abogados de la mayoría de negro estaban ocupados tratando de ganarse la vida", dice Alexander, quien asistió a la escuela secundaria de Topeka, cuando el caso Brown se presentó y pasó a convertirse en el primer negro elegido a la comisión de agua de Topeka.
"No podían dar esos casos sobre la posibilidad de que no se les paga. Sin embargo, Fred estaba tomando esos casos."
Phelps tuvo tanto éxito que se convirtió en el primer abogado negros llamaría cuando creían que estaban siendo discriminados, dice Scott de la NAACP.
"La mayoría de los negros - eso es lo que se fueron a", dice Scott. "No sé si era más barato o si había que se pegan a él-dad, pero Fred no perdió muchos en aquel entonces."
Douglas, el activista de derechos civiles y Topeka jefe de bomberos antiguos, dice Phelps era un abogado "brillante" que se hizo de enemigos.
"Hizo una fortuna en todos los casos", dice Douglas. "Todas las empresas lo odiaban porque él tuvo tanto éxito. Creo que si se discrimina marcianos, lo habría hecho esos casos. Podía hacer dinero."
Douglas dice que él no tenía idea entonces de Phelps actitud hacia los gays y las lesbianas.
- Shirley Phelps-Roper, hija de Phelps
"Ni siquiera hablar de eso", dice Douglas. "Mientras que lo conozco, nunca le oí hablar de ello, pero ahora es toda su vida."
hija de Phelps dice que su padre se ocupó de casos de derechos civiles a causa de su educación. Phelps nació en el Sur profundo durante la segregación.
"El creció en Mississippi ver la forma en que trató a la gente negro", dice Phelps-Roper.
Su padre no ha adoptado las mismas creencias racistas sólo "por la misericordia de Dios."
Tener gente los odia no es nada nuevo para Phelps y su familia, dice ella. La gente salió disparado sus ventanas y amenazó a su padre porque él se puso de pie para los negros en Kansas.
Luego que su padre entregó un editorial en la televisión local una noche lamentando el racismo blanco, dice ella, sonó el teléfono.
"Cuando tomé el teléfono, alguien está gritando negro amante en mi oído," dice ella. "Que se te pega. Esa no es la primera vez ni la última vez que escuché eso."
Phelps fue inhabilitado en 1979 por la Corte Suprema de Kansas después de que fue objeto de una denuncia por acosando testigo. El tribunal escribió: "La gravedad de este caso junto con su récord anterior lleva a esta Corte a la conclusión de que el demandado ha poco respeto por la ética de su profesión."
Phelps-Roper afirma que su padre fue inhabilitado en la corte estatal de Kansas por defender a los negros.
Esa gente que nos odiaba por ese trabajo ", dice ella. "El Estado nos odiaba por ello. Difícilmente pudieran llegar a ser de carácter civil, ya que ganamos los veredictos".
Fue Phelps motivados por el idealismo o el dinero?
Phelps críticos 'ahora lo detestan por otra razón - su activismo anti-gay.
Se le ha ganado notoriedad tanto que es conocida internacionalmente. En 2007, la BBC produjo un documental sobre Phelps y su iglesia, titulada "La mayoría de la odiada familia en Estados Unidos".
piquetes anti-gay de Phelps continuará a pesar de que su caso está pendiente ante la Corte Suprema de los EE.UU.. La familia tiene previsto visitar Atlanta, Georgia, a partir del miércoles dos días de protestas, incluyendo una en un centro comunitario judío y una puesta en escena una producción de teatro en honor de Shepard, el estudiante universitario asesinado gay.
El Southern Poverty Law Center, que vigila organizaciones extremistas, ha clasificado a la iglesia de Phelps como un grupo de odio. Se pide más notorios Phelps de Estados Unidos activista anti-gay.
Mark Potok, un portavoz del centro, dice Phelps utiliza un lenguaje antisemita en los volantes y folletos que los despachos de su iglesia en la actualidad.
"Yo no creo que le importa de los derechos civiles, tal vez lo hacía antes", dice Potok. "Cualquiera que sea átomo de simpatía que sentía por el movimiento de derechos civiles es claramente ha ido."
Nate Phelps, hijo distanciado, dice que su padre tenía actitudes racistas, incluso durante su trabajo como abogado de derechos civiles.
Dice que su padre no creía que los negros eran iguales a los blancos, los negros y, a menudo insultos fuera de alcance.
"Ellos vienen a su oficina y después de salir, él hablaba de lo tontos que eran negros y los llaman tonto", dice Phelps.
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