Unfollow

Unfollow

Adult memoir
"I didn't understand what was going on at first. The signs simply
appeared one day and never left, like some undeniable force of
nature. I'd guess Topekans experienced their arrival that way, as
well. My mother's family had been a well-known and polarizing
presence in the city for decades--but in my memory, the picketing is
the beginning, and it started at Gage Park.
I think most of us have heard of Westboro Baptist Church.
Neither they nor their critics have been publicity shy. I know I was
horrified at the things they said and did, especially when they
picketed the funerals of soldiers, telling their loved ones that their
deaths were a good thing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has
wondered how they can be so cruel. Now we have some answers. In her
memoir, Unfollow, Megan Phelps-Roper tells the story of growing up in,
starting to privately question, and ultimately leaving the
organization she was raised in all her life.
Megan was literally born into Westboro Baptist Church. Her
fundamentalist preacher grandfather founded it. She and her ten
siblings were brought up on a strict predestination based
interpretation of the Bible: we're the only ones who get to right.
Everyone else will burn in Hell for all eternity. She was a small
child when her community began picketing with anti gay signs at a
small park on a regular basis. When counterprotesters showed up
calling them Nazis and hatemongers her grandfather considered it a
sign of divine approval. Weren't Jesus and the twelve hated and
persecuted by their contemporaries? "...'In fact,' Gramps would roar
during his Sunday sermons, 'I'd be supremely afraid if the people of
this evil city were on our side.' Woe unto you, when all men shall
speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets."
Unquestioning obedience was demanded of Westboro Baptist
Children and discipline was often harsh. But there was a lot of love
in what was for the most part an extended family. Siblings and
cousins were plentiful and enjoyed a lot of the same things their
"bound for Hell" public school peers did. Megan especially loved the
sense of unity and commaraderie that prevailed in the community.
But community inclusion had its limits. Members who did not
totally toe the line were kicked out. Sometimes this meant losing
home and family as well as church. Some members ran away. Whether by
force or choice, departed members were considered to have gone over to
the evil side, never to be spoken of kindly again. On the morning of
Megan's high school graduation it was her brother Josh.
"...We'd been together since my birth precisely seventeen months
after his, but I'd never see him again. I'd never speak to him
again. He hadn't said goodbye. Why did he leave? Where did he go?
What was our family without him?..."
So when Megan began to have her own discontent with the church
and its flaws it was a struggle. Could she leave the only family,
home, and community she had never known and join the outside world,
many of whose members had reason to hate her?...
...Well you'll have to read the book and see.
Actually, even if you have no interest whatsoever in Westboro
Baptist Church in particular or religion in general, there is a lot to
be gained from reading the book. Megan points out that in many other
arenas, say politics, people are thinking in black and white, us and
them whom we have nothing to learn from, and compromise as taboo.
I am, for instance, harboring quite uncharitable thoughts about
all those people who run around, unable to see coronavirus as a clear
and present danger, serving as potential taxis for pathogens, and the
state and national officials who won't make them stay home already
unless work or emergency make that impossible and compensate hourly
workers for whom paycheck loss will be catastrophic. By emergency I
mean heart attack or running out of food, not stuff like wine tastings.
On a purrrsonal note (from Tobago), I don't get this thing about
toilet paper. Hoomans hoarding it, fist fighting over it, and calling
the police when they run out. I can see running out of food or
sanitizer as a crisis. But toilet paper? Puhleeze! What did hoomans
put on their babies' butts before pampers came along? Cloth diapers.
Pull your clothes that are so stained or holey or butt ugly that any
thrift shop would consign them to the dumpster and towels that have
lost their fuzz and cut them into squares, taking off stuff like
sequins and zippers that might scratch. Remember to wash them in the
hot water cycle. Shredded newspapers can fill in if you run out of
cat litter. In an emergency we floofs can eat canned tuna or chicken
and goggies eat everything including stuff you don't want them to om
nom.
So stock up on food, wash your hands, sanitize surfaces, don't touch
your face, and as much as possible stay home with your floof or
goggie. We are ace companions and stress busters. If you don't have
a furry friend yet, there are plenty at your local shelter. Your home
and love could be their dream come true. Remember you can't buy love,
but you can rescue it.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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