largest social security check—is King of Fags.” My grandfather spun out news releases, and we unleashed the power of our fax machines, sending the missives to every government-related number we could unearth. “The Swedish Royal Court has confirmed that it has been receiving abusive faxes from the fanatical Westboro Baptist Church sect.” (#LedesFrom1991) The technology was antiquated even in 2007, and we found it hysterical that our ol’ Gramps could literally cut and paste together the elements of a press release, “send it out on that little machine,” and stir up the highest levels of the Swedish government.
The campaign wouldn’t be complete without protests, of course. Our policy was not to leave the country and the protection of the First Amendment, but we were undeterred by our inability to travel to picket in Sweden. Instead, we targeted the country through its D.C. embassy and consulates in Chicago, Omaha, Minneapolis, and Portland; the local performance of a Swedish chamber orchestra; a Kansas alcohol distributor whose wares included Absolut Vodka; and a Topeka hardware store that sold Swedish vacuum cleaners. Even we laughed at the dubious connection between the vacuum retailer and a man sentenced to jail for an anti-gay sermon preached halfway around the world, but we were determined to make those Swedes hear the truth about their Sodomite sin—and just as important, to make them feel their impotence, the futility of their resistance to our message. This was God’s Word, and we were His servants. They had no power to stop us. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.
Thanks to my mother’s position in the church, our family was right in the middle of the torrent of activity surrounding Westboro. A few years after the start of our picketing ministry, my grandparents had grown tired of answering the phone calls they received on the church line. Prank calls and death threats came in all day long, but it was just as likely to be a journalist or live radio show. My mother did her best to be good to her parents, visiting often, sending one of us kids down to the church with dinner most nights, and executing the plans that she, my grandfather, and the other elders cooked up. So when my grandparents complained to her about their weariness of the phones, my mother wasn’t going to let her aging parents linger under that burden for a moment longer than necessary. Although she already worked what were effectively three full-time jobs, she was willing to take on another without objection. She had the church phone line forwarded to our home, and suddenly we were the ones on the receiving end of the abuse and media requests. The battle lines had been redrawn, and the picket line had come into our house.
“Hello?” I picked up the phone just after 8 A.M. one day in sixth grade.
“Hey, is there an adult we can talk to?” I told the man there was not; my mother was taking my siblings to school and I was home sick. He asked my age, and I told him eleven. “Okay, let’s talk to you, you’re on the air! What do you think about Ellen DeGeneres?” He snickered to his cohost like he’d told a clever joke. I rolled my eyes. Ellen had recently come out, and Gramps had put her photo on a sign after blackening out one of her teeth and drawing pockmarks all over her face.
“She’s a filthy dyke, and she’s going to Hell for eternity,” I said calmly, and then quoted the best clobber verse against gays from Leviticus: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. I thought for a second, and then added, “Plus, she’s not funny at all.” I hadn’t seen any of Ellen’s comedy or television, but it never hurt to toss in an insult like that for good measure. Margie, Gramps, and my mom gave the most articulate, powerful interviews, and I’d been listening to them long enough to know that switching things up to amp up the shock value was good strategy. I reported the call to my mom when she returned home, basking in her laugh as I recounted my repartee with the radio hosts. Cleverly articulating Westboro’s message would become one of the most reliable ways to earn affirmation from my mother and grandfather, and I