Who is Brownwood's "Fred Phelps" ?

Nightline Episode Focusing On Sand Springs Student Airs Wednesday Night
Tuesday January 11, 2005 5:03pm    Posted By: Kevin King
Nightline Focuses On Sand Springs
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Topeka Group In Sand Springs For Anti-Gay Protest Tulsa - A Nightline episode that focuses on a gay student in Sand Springs and the support he has seen locally will air Wednesday night.
Michael Shackelford was followed by the Washington Post when the publication did a series of articles about being young and gay in rural America. But, the headlines brought a controversial protest against homosexuality.
In November, Shackelford's former high school and his church were targeted by a controversial group that voices its views against homosexuality.
"I felt like it was my fault because they were coming because I still go here," Michael said. "But, feeling all the support from the church, I wasn't expecting the support. It really opened my eyes."
"What I have seen is a community that has grown in it's compassion and understanding for the kind of persecution that minorities including gays can be the object of," Nightline Producer Dan Morris said.
A Nightline crew spent a weekend in December in Sand Springs. The Nightline episode will air on Wed
source: http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/0105/199748.html
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Topeka Group In Sand Springs For Anti-Gay Protest
Monday November 08, 2004 10:35am    Posted By: Kevin King

Students Outraged Over Planned Anti-Gay Rally Outside High School Sand Springs - A group from Topeka, Kansas, is in Sand Springs today, bringing what could be a very heated anti-gay rally to Charles Page High School after a gay student was featured in the Washington Post.
The group is led by a pastor from Topeka named Fred Phelps. Some members of his church, Westboro Baptist Church were at Charles Page High School Monday morning. It comes a day after the group, known for their attacks on the gay community, began protesting at area churches.
Outside Cornerstone Church, where the former Charles Page High School student attends, they were protesting with some signs that were so violent, we had to blur some of the words contained on them.
The group Sunday was relatively small -- about ten people. But, that included six children, some as young as six years old.
Last week, the principal at Charles Page said, although he wished the group would not come to town, he would use the protest as a learning opportunity about our rights under the Constitution.
Meanwhile, others in the community are not appreciative of the group exercising that right.
"My thoughts are that I don't want it to be a distraction to us that we might continue to do what we came to do and that is to worship God," says Cornerstone Church Pastor Bill Eubanks.
The Sand Springs Police Department is working to keep the protest a safe and peaceful one.
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More on gay teen in small-town Oklahoma

Sunday, November 14 2004 @ 02:30 PM EST

Stories flagged in oRc last month (here and here) chronicled the life of a young gay man in Oklahoma. Now there are reports that gay-hater Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas is taking his campaign to the small Oklahoma town of Sand Springs. However, many in Sand Springs are standing up for Michael Shackelford. "This Westboro outfit thought they could come to this town and break it apart. But it has brought the town together. It has opened some doors to talk." The story chronicles Michael's experience since the articles were published. He's found that some who don't accept him the way he is are willing to support him the way he is -- even if some of them hope that he'll eventually change the way he is.
source: http://www.onreligion.com/article.php?story=20041114143056990&mode=print