Biografía

Despite being awarded a special honor by the NAACP for his practice of civil rights cases in the 1970s and 80s, he has been recorded by news crews and private citizens on numerous occasions screaming racial expletives at crowds of blacks and civilians. Members of the NAACP have stated in recent years that Phelps would not have been given the award had they known that he was using the civil rights cases as a front for extortion crimes.

In 1994, a woman attempted to murder him by running him over in her car after he allegedly shouted sexual obscenities at her during a picket. Phelps declined to press charges when the Topeka district attorney informed him that doing so would be essentially admitting that he was guilty of inciting violence, and he himself would be arrested and tried.

After spending decades as one of the most prominent hate figures in the United States, he is believed to have undergone a complete reversal of his homophobic beliefs shortly before his death. According to Phelps' grandson and former church member Zach Phelps-Roper, Phelps was voted out of the church after undergoing a "change of heart" regarding his religious beliefs. Zach reported that Phelps had spoken in support of the members of Equality House across the road from the church, which was regarded as "rank blasphemy" by the church, and told Them that They were ''good people''.

In 1968, weighing nearly 300lbs, he was rushed to the hospital after overdosing on a cocktail of barbiturates, amphetamines, and alcohol. He remained in a coma for nearly a week; upon release from the hospital he placed himself on a stringent liquid diet and dropped to 135lbs in less than three months.

Featured in the June 11, 1951 issue of TIME magazine for his efforts to make kissing in public a criminal felony in Pasadena, California. His crusade came to an end after he was arrested for assaulting a police officer who informed him that he did not have permission to picket at John Muir University.

The Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime.

Thank God for the tsunami, and thank God that two thousand dead Swedes are fertilizing the ground over there [in Asia]. How many of these two thousand, do you suppose, were fags and dykes? This is how the Lord deals with His enemies. And the Lord has got some enemies. And Sweden heads the list. You filthy Swedes. You filthy Swedes!

Thank God for 9/11. Thank God that, five years ago, the wrath of God was poured out upon this evil nation. America, land of the sodomite damned. We thank thee, Lord God Almighty, for answering the prayers of those that are under the altar.

This evil nation has smeared fag feces blended with dyke-- fag semen and dyke feces on the Bible!

President Bush and thousands of others, politicians and preachers, are making speeches and lying in [sic] their teeth, all agreeing that they can't explain such tragedies, but they're just certain a loving God had nothing to do with the massacre. They say, evil did it, like Star Wars, some evil force.