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20th Mar 2014

Westboro Baptist Church founder, Fred Phelps, dies aged 84

Fred Phelps, founder of the highly controversial independent Baptist church known as the Westboro Baptist Church, died late last night in Kansas.

JOE

Fred Phelps, founder of the highly controversial independent Baptist church known as the Westboro Baptist Church, died late last night in Kansas.

The Westboro Baptist Church is undoubtedly one of the most controversial groups in America, as the church is known for anti-gay sentiments, protests at soldiers’ funerals and extremely offensive picket signs. They’ve also taken a stab at the Irish in the past calling us “knuckle dragging potato eating perverts”.

It was known that Fred Phelps, who founded the church back in 1955, had been suffering from health problems “relating to age” and that he was being cared for in a hospice in Topeka, Kansas.

However, it has been revealed that he passed away late on Wednesday night, March 19, around midnight.

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Fred’s son Nathan, who left the church 37 years ago, said on Facebook: “I’m not sure how I feel about this. Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made.

“I feel sad for all the hurt he’s caused so many. I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I’m bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes.”

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