Nate Phelps, the son of Rev. Fred
Phelps who helms the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, has called his
father a “sociopath.”
According
to St. Louis-based gay weekly The Vital Voice, Nate spoke
to a 500-person crowd on Thursday at Clayton High School.
“I think he's a sociopath,” Nate
said of his father. “I think that he fits that based on his
inability to empathize with others, his calculated cruelty, and by
laughing at the harm he causes. I've seen that growing up with him.”
Many of Nate's 12 siblings remain in
the Topeka, Kansas-based church known for coining the phrase “God
hates fags” and picketing
at the funerals of fallen soldiers, because their deaths are the
price America pays for its acceptance of “the sin of
homosexuality.”
Nate described how he escaped his
father's home: “I knew I was going to do it when I turned 15 or so.
I bought a car when I was 17 – hid it – no one knew it was mine.
[I] packed my stuff up and at 11:30 on the night of my 18th
birthday, I backed it into the driveway and loaded it up and went
inside. [I] waited for the clock to hit midnight and then I left.”
Nate now lives in Canada.