Westboro’s Margie Phelps debates free speech at the MSU College of Law

Margie Phelps and two other WBC members at East Lansing High

Margie Phelps is a fire-breathing Christian reformer one minute and a skilled Constitutional law scholar the next. She displayed both sides of her persona Thursday in East Lansing.

At noon, she appeared on a panel on free speech at the Michigan State University College of Law. Margie is the daughter of Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church that is infamous for holding protests near the funeral of fallen soldiers. A suit filed by grieving father Albert Snyder against the Phelps family has wended its way to the U.S. Supreme Court where Margie argued for the family in front of the sitting Supreme Court justices in her role as an attorney.

Ninety minutes later, Phelps and two other members of the church ranted in protest behind a chain link fence erected alongside Old Hickory in East Lansing across from East Lansing High School. The Unity in Our Community Coalition held a counter-protest of love at All Saints Episcopal Church around the corner from the high school. A counter-protest crowd also formed at East Lansing High across from where the WBC members held their protest.

Professor Frank Ravitch