In 2009, Megan recalls, “We started protesting all things Jewish.” Megan was already in charge of the WBC’s social media campaign, including its Twitter feed. It was there that she began receiving challenges to the church’s doctrine by a blogger at the website Jewlicious, L.A.-based Canadian David Abitbol, who pointed to the absurdity of much of the WBC’s official line on Judaism and homosexuality.
Megan and Grace started asking themselves what they were up to, and what their church and extended family really believed in. There were, Megan confirms, “a lot of conversations” between them, “not about leaving, but about aspects of the church, the theology and its application. Over time, we started to see things that made us think, ‘Wait a second, there’s something wrong here. This doesn’t fit together.’ ”
But that questioning proved difficult, due to the strict interpretation of scripture that Mr. Phelps – “Gramps” to Megan and Grace – insists WBC members adhere to. “It was always very much all-or-nothing,” Megan explains. “The way the church presents it is, there’s the WBC and the rest of the world. And the rest of the world is evil. The WBC is the only place in the world in our generation that is telling the truth of God. Over time, those little things built up, and there were so many of them. Once you step out of it for a second, and you’re out of that vacuum, things change.”