Documentary explores church’s views on gays

The church has protested at military funerals.

By BEN NUCKOLS

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

BALTIMORE — K. Ryan Jones knew he’d picked an incendiary subject when he decided to make a documentary about Westboro Baptist Church for an undergraduate film class at the University of Kansas. He didn’t know he had good timing, too.

The making of “Fall from Grace” (Showtime, 5:15 p.m. Dec. 13) coincided with a surge in attention for the small, fundamentalist church, whose members picket the funerals of soldiers killed overseas. They believe American military casualties are God’s punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

Pastor Fred Phelps and his Topeka, Kan., congregation — most of them members of his immediate family — think any publicity is good publicity. They cooperated fully with Jones, who allows them plenty of time to explain their ideology.

Some viewers might think they get just enough rope to hang themselves.

“You can’t hardly imagine a more fitting way to severely punish a people than to begin to blow the cream of their young manhood and womanhood to smithereens in Iraq,” Phelps says, “and the forum, or the venue, to preach that, is the funeral of some soldier, some young American soldier who’s been blown to smithereens by an IED.”

Phelps’ choice of venue has gotten him in trouble. In October, a federal jury in Baltimore levied an $11 million judgment against the church after the father of a fallen soldier sued Phelps and his congregation for invasion of privacy and causing emotional distress. The church plans to appeal and has not paid any damages; meanwhile, its members continue to picket military funerals around the country.

Jones told The Associated Press that he worried it might be irresponsible to give Phelps yet another forum. But he believes the documentary will do more good than harm.

“This is not a problem that’s going to go away simply by ignoring it,” Jones said. “The goal of the film is to educate people about this group — the way they think, the way that they act and why they do these things, so we can be better equipped to handle it.”

Jones gathered footage for “Fall from Grace” between October 2005 and October 2006, spending time with church members and interviewing those affected by their protests, including Topeka’s mayor and police chief and the widow of a young soldier.

It’s not a polished documentary. (Jones had scant financial resources — he estimates his budget at $10,000 — and he relies too heavily on footage of Westboro members protesting and montages of their picket signs.) But the film accomplishes Jones’ goal of explaining the origins of Phelps’ vitriol toward fallen soldiers.

Phelps, a disbarred lawyer, founded the Westboro Baptist Church more than 50 years ago, but he only began protesting against gays in 1991 — shortly after he was banned from practicing law in both state and federal courts.