1. Fred Phelps was reportedly a propaganda operative for Saddam Insane.
What bothers me is there's nothing about this on the CNN website [at least in google]. I would have thought that CNN, being on such good terms with Saddam, would have plastered their website with this. But I hadn't found anything about Phelps there yet. So please bear that in mind.
Wikipedia seems to be a root source of this report:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rev._Fred_Phelps#Affiliations_with_Saddam_Hussein_and_Fidel_Castro
"...In 1997, before the fall of Saddam Hussein during the second Gulf War, Phelps wrote him a letter praising his regime, and received special permission from the Iraqi government to send a group of his children to Baghdad to protest against the American government..." [snip]
Phelps had his church followers [children] stand in the streets of Baghdad with all kinds of hate-America signs.
Wikipedia adds:
"...Phelps mourned the fall of Hussein's regime and has consistently criticized the invasion of Iraq, citing, "IRAQ=USA=SODOM" and keeping a toll on his webpage celebrating the death of every American soldier killed and pronouncing loyalty to Iraq..." [snip]
Now I have to ask, if this report is true, just why is Phelps celebrating the deaths of our soldiers? Because he hates sodomites? Or because he supports Saddam Insane?
Another website, biologydaily.com, is almost word-for-word, with the same report as Wikipedia:
http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Fred_Phelps#Affiliations_with_Saddam_Hussein_and_Fidel_Castro
2. He was reportedly a propaganda operative for Fidel Castro.
In both the above links, wikipedia and biologydaily, Phelps had been working with Fidel Castro, at least some that's reported. They quote Harper's Magazine in 1998.
3. Very Tight With Al Gore
This has been more widely reported than the ties with Castro and Saddam. For how long? As late as 1997, the same year he reportedly reached out to Baghdad!
http://www.lcrga.com/archive/200010251159.shtml Mind you: this is a Georgia Log Cabin Republicans web page, but they claim these are authentic photos of Gore and Tipper with the Phelps family.
Gore Political Ties to "God Hates Fags" Founders Uncovered
Gore and Wife Tipper Headlined Fund raiser at Phelps' Topeka Home; Phelps Family Reportedly Invited to Clinton-Gore Inaugurations in 93 and 97 [snip]
[Web site has photos claiming it's the Gore family with the Phelps family]
Wikipedia confirms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rev._Fred_Phelps
CNS confirms:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200010\POL20001016c.html
"...The people of this church were powerfully persuaded that, because of him talking to us - I'm talking about eyeball to eyeball - that he was opposed to the homosexual, so-called gay rights agenda," said Fred W. Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, where he runs the anti-homosexuality web site as part of the church’s ministry..." [snip]
CNS adds this:
"...The 70-year-old pastor also claimed to have made arrangements for Gore’s campaign staff in Kansas to live with parishioners during the campaign, and Phelps’ son provided office space for the campaign and hosted a fundraising event for Gore following his failed bid for his party’s presidential nomination..."
4. Narcotics abuser?
http://www.rslevinson.com/gaylesissues/features/collect/phelps/bl_phelpschapter04.htm
[Note this has a very pro-homosexual slant]
"...Fred Phelps became heavily dependent on amphetamines and barbituates while in law school. Every week for 6 years, from 1962-1967, their mother would give Mark a 20 dollar bill and ask him to go down and pick up his father's 'allergy medicine'..." [snip]
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/michael_haggerty/expose3.htm
[note this page has a strong disclaimer]
"But the beast already so poorly penned within Fred now came out. Under the conflicting tug of speed that wouldn't wear off and the Darvon he'd taken to sleep, the Pastor Phelps would often wake his family in the middle of the night while doing his imitation of a whirling dervish whose shoes were tied together: "With all the drugs, he had very little body control," remembers Mark, "so we weren't really scared of him then."
http://www.baptistwatch.org/content/expose3.html
[similar word-for-word account as the other two]
"...He also picked up bottles of little yellow pills that were to 'help daddy get to sleep'..."
http://www.topekadiy.com/xfsection+index.category+3+orderby+createdA+PHPSESSID+acd2cfc0cfa3005e1757116c1007e80a.htm
"...Finally, Fred's system could no longer withstand being wrenched up by reds in the morning and jerked down by barbituates at night. One day, he didn't wake up. Mark remembers seeing the long, gray ambulance in the driveway. His father had slipped into a coma from toxic drug abuse..."
http://www.topekadiy.com/edito+content.id+1.htm
This is in a letter Mark Phelps reportedly wrote last year to citizens of Topeka and northeast Kansas:
"...I also realize that my father is a very unstable person who is determined to hurt people. And because he is so bound to be hateful and hurtful, and because he's so untrustworthy, I believe it's a good idea to respond to him with caution much like the caution used when dealing with a rattlesnake or a mad dog. You see, the causes that he crusades for, including the Bible, are not the issue here. He simply wants to hate and to have a forum for his hate. If the causes he focuses on were the issue, that is, if they really meant something to him in his heart and he meant for the things he does to be for the good, his behavior would not be what it is..."
5. Shady Lawyer?
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:QD5jeX4KZ8gJ:www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp%3Fsid%3D184+%22fred+phelps%22+campaign+governor&hl=en&start=3
1964
Phelps earns a law degree from Washburn University in Topeka, but has trouble joining the state bar when no judges are willing to vouch for his "good character," the normal procedure under Kansas law. Phelps overcomes this obstacle by providing recommendations from others.
Before the end of his legal career in 1989, Phelps will file some 400 suits, mostly in federal court. Estranged son Nathan Phelps will claim later that part of his father's strategy is to file frivolous lawsuits in the hope that his targets will settle to avoid the costs of defense.
1990
Phelps, undertaking a run for governor of Kansas, begins disseminating flyers attacking his gubernatorial competitors and other state politicians in unusually personal terms. He loses the Democratic primary, but garners 11,634 votes, 6.7% of the total.
[a lot of other interesting stuff there, but moving along...]
You can get an earful about all manner of reports from these pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rev._Fred_Phelps#Criminal_record
1987: Witness intimidation, threats, and attempted extortion (charges were brought up by the Kansas Bar Association and used as evidence in Phelps' disbarment and the launching of disbarment hearings against his children) [snip]
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/fred-phelps/ 1979 The Kansas Supreme Court disbars Fred Phelps, declaring in part that he had "little regard for the ethics of his profession."
1989 Fred Phelps surrenders his license to practice law in Federal court.
[snip out of rotten.com]
For more information than you would care to read, here are some other pages:
http://www.killcreek.com/devolution/addicted.html
That page starts off this way:
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF SHAWNEE COUNTY, KANSAS
DIVISION 7
Case No. 94CV766
JON BELL, Plaintiff,
vs.
STAUFFER COMMUNICATIONS, INC., Defendant.
[snip]
http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Fred_Phelps
Final Question: If it's true that Phelps was a friend of Al Gore, just what on earth attracted Gore to him? Was it Castro? Was it Saddam? Drugs? A shady lawyer? What? Why did Gore like this guy?
Here's the link to James Stewart's July 4th funeral:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1433446/posts