walked through an idyllic university community, empty of students and full of autumn leaves in brilliant hues, she put her arm through mine and started to cry.
“This is it,” she said quietly. “This is where I’d be. If the Lord hadn’t saved me … I imagine I’d be a professor … living in a place like this, one of these houses…” She trailed off, and we both walked together like that for a time, contemplating the choices we would have made if we’d had any choice at all. Margie’s words were echoes of a lament I’d been hearing from teachers and journalists for years: that a family as impressive as the Phelpses were wasting our lives and talents tormenting people on the streets. How startling it was to hear it in Margie’s voice, my mind stirring with the beginnings of a subtle realization: that even among the staunchest of us, the sacrifices we made in order to be at Westboro—our insistent rejection of the world outside—weren’t quite as simple and inevitable as they had always seemed.
* * *
Gathered on the marble plaza in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, the throng of reporters appeared stunned, and I laughed aloud at their bewilderment. Before them stood over a dozen Westboro members with my mom and Margie at the fore, all of us brimming with adrenaline and positively giddy. Just behind us shone all the imposing grandeur of the Court’s edifice: broad steps leading up to a portico of Corinthian columns and a white marble façade proclaiming “Equal Justice Under Law,” evoking Greece’s Parthenon just as it was designed to. Oral arguments in Snyder v. Phelps had wrapped moments earlier, and I looked over Margie’s shoulder at the assembled mass of cameras and microphones as she and my mother fielded questions from the Supreme Court press corps. Margie had shown deference to the justices and respect for the Court’s pomp and pageantry while we were inside the courtroom itself, but we were back outside now. Our turf. When a journalist made the mistake of asking whether Westboro members ever considered the Snyder family’s feelings, the whole group of us spontaneously burst into song, as one:
Cryin’ ’bout your feeeeeelings
For your sin, no shame!
You’re goin’ straight to Hell on your crazy train!
Dozens of cameras chronicled the incongruity of the scene: the lawyer who had just calmly and cogently expounded First Amendment doctrine to the justices of the nation’s highest court, now leading a band of misfits in serenading America’s leading media outlets with a parody of “Crazy Train” by the British heavy metal vocalist Ozzy Osbourne—in three-part harmony. The footage went viral, and we delighted in the fact that NBC’s camera angle had allowed it to capture one extra piece of the picture: me, standing just behind my mom and Margie, lifting my hand for a high five and laughing with a cousin who promptly indulged me. “That’s our answer about feelings,” Margie told the crowd of dismayed reporters as we stood giggling just over her shoulder. “Stop worshipping your feelings, and start obeying God!”
The Osbournes issued a statement the following day, “disgusted and appalled that WBC would use Ozzy’s music to represent such hateful and despicable beliefs.”
It was perfect.
We knew that the Court wouldn’t deliver its opinion for several months, and after a long year of litigation involving courts in Nebraska and Missouri, too, I expected something of a lull in the interim. Instead, the six months following oral arguments were among the most intense the church had ever seen. The explosions of media coverage wherever we roamed, the growing mobs of angry counterprotesters, the teams of journalists who continued to arrive on our doorstep—all of it was proof that God was with us, strengthening our hands for this good work, and causing our efforts to prosper. I loved every second of it. My place as my mother’s right hand came with high standards and high costs, but I paid them happily, growing more devoted to our cause with each passing day. The world held no allure for me. How could it? I was squarely in the middle of a sea of activity that was being attended to by the angels of God, ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. That was us: “heirs of salvation.”
Living in my parents’ home as a single, childless woman with a college degree and a flexible work schedule, I had the freedom and financial wherewithal to journey far and wide