Granddaughter of Westboro Baptist Church founder on why she abandoned her fundamentalist family to campaign for gay rights from rainbow-colored Equality House



Libby Alvarez Phelps is the daughter of Fred Phelps, who founded the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church and believes homosexuality is the root of all evil



She hasn't spoken to her family since she left the church four years ago, but can see them on their daily walks holding up 'God Hates F**s' signs

As a member of the fundamentalist anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, Libby Phelps Alvarez spent her childhood picketing funerals of servicemen with signs like 'God Hates Dead Soldiers'.



Now she has left the group founded by her grandfather Fred Phelps, and is working for a nonprofit organization that celebrates homosexuality.



According to the New York Post , Alvarez has agreed to work on anti-bullying initiatives with Planting Peace , based inside the rainbow-colored Equality House that sits across the street from her family's church headquarters.



Peaceful protest: Planting Peace founder Aaron Jackson (left) will be working with Libby Phelps Alvarez (right) in the rainbow-colored Equality House



Alvarez was showing a cousin the colorful house when Planting Peace co-founder Aaron Jackson walked outside and introduced himself. Jackson, 31, says that he painted the house to protest the Westboro clan's outspoken anti-gay preaching.



Over the years, Alvarez had gone from scrunching her nose at homosexual couples to an attitude of acceptance. 'I don’t really care if somebody is gay,' Alvarez says. 'I still believe in God. I just think that he’s more forgiving.'

Over dinner, she decided to become involved with his anti-bullying campaign - even though this would mean working across the street from her parents, whom she hadn't seen in four years.



But she doesn't bother to approach them, because she knows that she has been frozen out for her view.



Painting protest: Aaron Jackson painted the two-bedroom rainbow-colored house across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church to protest the church's actions



Facing conflict: Libby Phelps shows off her skills while helping paint the nonprofit charity organization, which is located across the street from the Westboro Babtist Church headquarters

Alvarez's upbringing was surreal. 'Gramps, as I called him, is a Southern gentleman,' Alvarez told reporter Sara Stewart. 'You just want to be in his orbit. But with Gramps and my dad - Fred Phelps Jr - the only way to get their love and affection was to talk about hell.'

'I remember sitting by the pool in the backyard when I was young, writing in my pink notebook about hell and the descriptions of it. Gramps came up to me and kissed me on the forehead and said, "I love you, I love you, I love you" three times in a row.'

The Westboro Baptist Church, which is believed to have just a few dozen members, was founded in Topeka, Kansas in 1955 by Fred Phelps.



But Alvarez says he wasn't always a fundamentalist. Back in the 1980s, Phelps was a Democrat and civil rights lawyer who, at one point, ran for governor and entertained Al Gore at home. When Alvarez was eight, she says her grandfather visited a park and claimed that gay men had propositioned her cousins.



Counter protest: Planting Peace, which supports orphanages in the developing world, has attracted support from activists across the country



After that, he became fixated on homosexuality as the root of all evil. Over poached eggs in the morning, she would hear about how gay people are 'dooming the nation'.



Then the family started picketing: First every weekend, and eventually every day. The women were required to submit and cover their heads during sermons, which would always come back to the subject of how gay people were 'dooming' the nation.

' With Gramps and my dad - Fred Phelps Jr - the only way to get their love and affection was to talk about hell'

Holidays like Christmas and Easter were deemed 'too pagan', so the Westboro kids were only allowed to celebrate birthdays. They attended public school, but since they weren't allowed to go to dances their social lives largely revolved around picketing.

'We would use it to go on vacations. You go, you picket, you do some fun stuff. I have a picture of me in Hawaii with two signs: “God hates f **s” and “God hates Hawaii,"' Alvarez says. 'Why does he hate Hawaii? Because we wanted to go there!'

After 9/11, Alvarez says she was horrified - until she came home and found everyone 'celebrating, like "This is awesome! God is punishing this nation!"'



Bible Baptist: Pastor Fred Phelps founded the Westboro Baptist Church and believes that homosexuality is the root of all evil in America

In 2008, she graduated from the University of Kansas Medical Center with a doctorate in physical therapy. One of her first patients was a man named Logan. She thought he was cute, but in order to avoid being accused of 'lusting', kept her crush a secret.



Then in 2009, Alvarez took a photo of herself and her sister Sara while picketing Puerto Rico. When she showed her grandfather, he said the girls looked 'like models'.

But the reaction from the family was immediate: 'I showed up, and 30 church members had filled up the big game room. Like a show was being put on or something,' Alvarez recalls. 'And they started in: The initial issue was the bikini, but the bigger problem was the way I was reacting. Because I had stood up for myself.'

Going abroad: Since leaving Westboro Libby Phelps Alvarez has been on several trips with her husband Logan, since church members were not allowed to leave the country

Alvarez left the church on Friday the 13th. The next few months traumatic:She got a haircut for the first time in her life, but also believed that the plane she got on may crash because God wanted her to die.



She ran into the cute former patient Logan on the street, and once they started dating he told her he didn't care about her past. They married in 2011 in Cozumel, and since her parents weren't at the wedding she walked herself down the aisle.



'I felt lonely - everybody wants their dad to walk them down the aisle - and I could have asked a cousin,' she says, 'but I figured, I’ll be a strong independent woman and do this by myself.'



' I want my cousins and my nieces and nephews to see that the world isn’t mean and hateful and evil and full of vicious people'

In the past few years, around 20 church members have left - most in their teen and early twenties. Alvarez knows that her parents will see her interviews, and holds out hope that they may leave as well.



She also says that her views on homosexuality have changed - now she doesn't care as long as they are good people.

