With stephen sackur. Holding up placards outside the funerals of dead american soldiers. Celebrating schoolroom massacres. Westboro Baptist Church has been described as the most obnoxious, hate filled group in america. Megan phelps roper was part of that group. She was born into the church, she carried those hate filled cards from the age of five years old. But as an adult, firing off tweets against online critics, megan began to doubt. Eventually, she left the church altogether but she paid a high price the church was founded by her grandfather, she was shunned by those she loved the most. Can she still really regard the people who taught her to hate, to desire more debt, that the world was going to hell, as her beloved, wonderful mum and dad . Megan phelps roper, welcome to hardtalk. From the age of five and 1991, you were involved in your familys demonstrations, later taking part in pickets of the funerals of dead soldiers in the united states. Can you give us a sense of what these events meant to you . Describe a typical day of protest for you . You . Describe a typical day of protest for you . We organised our entire lives around our picketing ministry. We saw it is our duty to love thy neighbour, to go out and warn people of the consequences of their sins. This included homosexuality, fornication, adultery, divorce, idolatry, the list of sins was endless and the understanding that i grew up with was that everyone outside of westboro was hell bound and our duty was to go and preach to them. We we re was to go and preach to them. We were offering them a message of life and hope. 0ur were offering them a message of life and hope. Our understanding was that this was the only path for people to go to heaven and to avoid the curses of god in this life. As a child, describe your sense of what it was like. It was exciting getting ready for these . Yeah. I was very happy because i thought we were doing good, i thought we were the good guys. My understanding was that we we re guys. My understanding was that we were the good guys, everyone else was going to hell, so, yeah, you are going out and standing on the picket line. 0ften going out and standing on the picket line. Often it was high energy. People coming out and were discussing these ideas that it is what life is all about. I was very happy. You described in your book that you were a willing participant in the most aggressive anti gay Picketing Campaign the country had ever seen. What sort of response did you elicit from people who you were attempting to persuade to convert . Because we talked a lot about the hatred of god, people assumed that we we re hatred of god, people assumed that we were hateful, and they responded to us in kind. Generally there was a lot of hostility and antagonism. People throwing things, sometimes driving their cars at us, yelling, screaming. When i said high energy, amen it was generally very negative energy, and for us that was proof of oui energy, and for us that was proof of our righteousness becausejesus said listed are you when people hate you. Grandpa said that we should take it asa grandpa said that we should take it as a badge of honour. The founder of the church . Yes, the church is almost entirely my extended family. From behind my sign, i watched them come to grab for our saints, our hair. The police rarely seemed to help but appearance kept us safe. Because it was our duty to be out there, never saw it as my parents putting us in danger, i trusted my pa rents putting us in danger, i trusted my parents as we all do when we were kids. But they were putting you potentially in harms way. But for them, they believe that god is with them, they believe that god is with them and requiring less of them. We would be in far more danger if they didnt have us out there doing our duty to god. Do you still believe that to be the case . Obviously icy that to be the case . Obviously icy that they were putting us on the pa rt that they were putting us on the part of peoples hatred, every time we would go to one of those protests out of town, we contacted the police department. They were actively trying to keep us safe and they do think that the people who are committing crimes where people who we re committing crimes where people who were actually with answerable for that. Are you still questioning your decision to leave . No. It was something that was a very considered decision when i left and almost immediately i started having experiences that helped me see that the things that they had been taught my entire life were entirely questionable, and the things they had taken questionable, and the things they had ta ken totally for questionable, and the things they had taken totally for granted, the idea that other people were either evil or delusional, ill intentioned almost immediately started meeting incredible people who were clearly trying to live life in the best way they knew how, so i do not question at this point my decision to leave. Im interested, you say their views we re im interested, you say their views were questionable. They just im interested, you say their views were questionable. Theyjust want to be clear, because you are on a journey, in a sense . Understood. When isaac questionable, i have come to believe that they are wrong. At this point, id still believe that, im no longer see the bible as the infallible word of god as a one dead andi infallible word of god as a one dead and i dont think westboros understanding of the world and how it works, i have completely rejected that. You described in the book your closeness of your relationship with yourfamily and closeness of your relationship with your family and particularly your mum. You became her right hand, you helped organise, you were working very closely with her. Even though you have left the church, even though you now have no contact, i think, with the family, you have dedicated your book to your parents. And people watching and listening to this might be surprised about that. What a say in the dedication is i left the church, but never them, and i never will. Because i dont believe that my family is the problem. I believe that bad ideas, they have been persuaded by bad ideas and just like i was convinced, persuaded to change my heart and mind, that they can also be convinced, because icm is good people who have been trapped by bad ideas. A wonderful father, a people who have been trapped by bad ideas. A wonderfulfather, a mother who you describe somebody who couldnt be a greater teacher, i am humbled to be your daughter. Absolutely, obviously there were ha rd absolutely, obviously there were hard moments as there are for all families, the fact that my family believed strongly in physical punishment is spoken of in the bible, but because i was convinced, was persuaded of the goodness of those doctrines, i was happy stopping my conscience and my actions were in line and ive felt leo was fulfilling a divine purpose, so leo was fulfilling a divine purpose, soi leo was fulfilling a divine purpose, so i very happy. I suppose it is more about know what your parents protest a nd more about know what your parents protest and whether it is enough to say of your parents that they are basically good people, because there comes a point, isnt there, whereas good people do bad things, they are not really good people anymore. Good people do bad things, they are not really good people anymorelj understand not really good people anymore. understand what you are saying. This is where the epigraph of the book is this line from the great gatsby that says preserving judgement as a matter of infinite hope, and that is for me a posture of grace, it is the picture of grace. It is the idea of seeing people as being on a journey and that there is hope for them to grow and evolve and change and be better, and i believe that as possible of my family, so if you wa nt possible of my family, so if you want me to say that my family are, i will absolutely say without question and without caveat that they do evil things sometimes and that is extremely painful to look back at my own past and know that i was doing evil things, cruel things, unmissable things. There are lots of children still in the westboro Baptist Church. Your extended family, never mind others who have brought their children in. Do you think the authorities, knowing what they know now, should intervene . That is a really. I think, specifically in terms of, just because of the First Amendment in the united states, identical to have any standing to intervene when it comes to the doctrines of. I do think the physical punishment. This is something, when i was writing the book, there was a part of me that wanted not to write about that. But i didnt want to, i felt the sense of wanting to protect my family asi the sense of wanting to protect my family as i think we all generally do, but it felt important to write about it for a number of reasons and pa rt about it for a number of reasons and part of it is because i do want them to be afraid to hurt the children. That was something that was really emotional, writing about that, because as you say, there are a lot of children there. On one particularly explosive morning when i was eight or nine, may my sister andi i was eight or nine, may my sister and i got beatings and they were bad. They would bloom into bruises, purple and black. You also talked about how your mother was beaten so badly by her father at one point that she was left with lifelong injuries that she still has to deal with today. That is child abuse. Yeah. Absolutely. It took me a long time, because as a grew up my kind of a cce pted time, because as a grew up my kind of accepted westboros view of those beatings. A quote in the book all these bible passages thatjustify those things, specifically even the idea of beating children to the point of bruises, that is in the bible stopping the blueness of the wound cleanses away evil, and i do absolutely believe that is child abuse. What sort of contact have you had since you left . Seven years ago . Seven yea rs had since you left . Seven years ago . Seven years ago this week. Almost nothing. I reach out to them regularly, because when they first left i despaired of ever having them back, and a pretty quickly came to realise that, how dare id not have hope for them . Considering my own journey. If could be persuaded by kind, compassionate strangers who listened to where i was coming from, considered my perspective, and made their case and helped change my heart and their case and helped change my heartand mind, their case and helped change my heart and mind, i felt like their case and helped change my heartand mind, ifelt like i owe that to my family. These people who invested so much time and energy and resources and love in me, i owe it to them and they also feel like i owe it to the people that they target, because if they can help the moderate depositions and change their mind, they will be hurting far fewer people. You talk about twitter and this is a huge part of your story, because you went on twitter and that is something we i suppose social media we associate as a mechanism for polarising opinion, for encouraging people to express themselves in very short but graphic ways, started to open your mind. Can you explain a bit about that . Absolutely, i think the very first change that communication on twitter brought in me came from the fact that it was so short. Having this 140 characters, a recognised really quickly that the insults that my family through around casually, and when i got on twitter, there wasnt space for it, and when they did insult people i could watch the conversation just completely go off the rails immediately, and they didnt want to have this playground quarrels, was trying to have theological debates. First, a stop insulting people. Then, the more important parts were, twitter became an alternative source of community for me. Westboro had been my only. They were the only people that are trusted or felt close to in any way, and the fact that among the stay of hostility, the fact that there were also these very kind people asking questions and trying to, i was seeing parts of the humanity in a way that they never had before, and they were seeing mine, and it enabled this conversation that, eventually, led to them finding internal inconsistencies in our doctrine. The leader of the Antidefamation League rate last year, social Media Companies created and allowed extremists to move the message from the margin to the mainstream, get your experience of social media is more hope all and very different, it suggests it is possible for closed minds to not become more closed but potentially to open. Absolutely. Ifi had visited twitter in 2016 for the first time, and i was talking to the woman, she was showing the e mails that she had written to the other twitter executives explaining why i hadnt been kicked off the platform. If she had done that, i wouldnt have had these experiences that let me see outside of westboros ideology. Twitter can be a tool for radicalisation, because you have extremist theyre trying to recruit people. Why arent were doing things like, in the mainstream, people with better ideas, trying to recruit people . If we keep people of these platforms, isolate people, all that does is it pushes them deeper into this ideology. All they have thenis into this ideology. All they have then is this echo chamber with no way out. It is a big dilemma for the authorities or the regulators, because on the one hand we are worried about radicalisation, we have talked about the concept of islam is activity, but you were radicalised through your childhood and you are going through arguably a process of deradicalisation, and ongoing process. You know, people talk about twitter being a cesspool, for instance, and my response to that as i do believe that social Media Companies, i am sure there are things that they can do, buti sure there are things that they can do, but i also think that twitter is assessa ble do, but i also think that twitter is assessable because we make it a cesspool. We get to decide how were going to engage people. We can give in to these very human impulses to respond, you know, in outrage when we see things that are outrageous, 01 we can we see things that are outrageous, or we can decide there is a human being on the other side of this, and this person has, and this is what people did for me, right . They recognise that i had a lifetime of experiences that led me to that place, and that the way out was not to shame me, but to help me see outside of it. 0ffer to shame me, but to help me see outside of it. Offer better ideas. We have said already that the westboro Baptist Church was kind of what we might call a family business. I mean, it was founded by your grandfather, the late fred phelps, who was its pastor. Among the things he said over the years was, you cant believe the bible without believing that god hates people. It is pure nonsense to say that god loves the sinner but hates the sin. He hates the sin, he hates the sin. He hates the sin, he hates the centre. What do you think when you read back and you hear the things he said and apparently believe . Yes, he definitely believe them. We believe the bible was the literal and infallible word of god, and that his understanding of it was unquestionable. And you know, he was very smart, he was trained as a lawyer. You know, he won all kinds of awards for his civil rights work. So he was not a stupid person, and that i think led him to this toxic sense of certainty in his own righteousness. When i listen to those ideas, i understand where he is coming from, and i can quote you so many of the verses. We spent all. Every single day we were reading the bible and memorising these passages, and we would stand on the picket line and we would quote them to people who also claimed to believe the bible, and they were shocked. I dont believe in the bible anymore, and it seems such a heartbreaking waste of his time and energy and talents. You dont believe in the bible anymore, dont believe in the bible anymore, do you believe in god . dont believe in the bible anymore, do you believe in god . I do not. There is so much of my upbringing, though, that i retain, these ideas that i learned from religion, ideas like grace and hope and mercy, compassion, the importance of community. Theres so much of my upbringing that i retain. You say you dont believe in the bible, you dont believe in god. You quote the bible quite a lot, so it is clearly in some ways still an inspiration for you. No, it absolutely is. When i say for you. No, it absolutely is. When isayi for you. No, it absolutely is. When i say i dont believe in the bible, what i mean is i dont believe in the infallibility of the bible. There are many things i find in the bible that are wonderful, it is just that i now feel free to discount and discredit the things i think are wrong. Given you think that this self styled church is wrong, given you think it is distorting religion and faith, isnt it fair to say that this is really extremism masquerading as a religion, subverting the us constitution, hijacking the us constitutional right to religious freedom in order to advance its cause . Its hard to. So for instance, i write in the book also about the snyder versus phillips case that went to the us supreme court. This is the case in which the father of a dead marine whose funeral had been picketed challenge the right of Westboro Baptist to do that. Yes, and while of course i believe and wish that my family would stop doing things like that, that they should not use the freedom they have been given as a cloak of maliciousness, as it says in the bible, that is what i believe they are doing there. But i also think that the fact that i think that the justices were right in making the decision that they made, that we have to have an open marketplace of ideas, that the importance of open, robust public debate, it has to be the priority. Evenif debate, it has to be the priority. Even if it extends to the kinds of scenes that people who used to picket had to endure . Because you must have a very profoundly deep sense now of the distress that you caused. Absolutely, absolutely, and its something that i think about. You know, ithink its something that i think about. You know, i think about it frequently. It comes up in. 0bviously frequently. It comes up in. Obviously there are a lot of things that trigger those memories, and it is deeply distressing to me, the things that i did, specifically at funeral protests. And this has been pa rt funeral protests. And this has been part of what has been the motivation for me in doing the work that i have been doing and trying to make amends. When jaques kallis, unmerciful, how i was to so many who had just lost a son or daughter. I am ashamed, and it is still really difficult to think about the harm i caused. It is overwhelming sometimes. You said those words three years ago. Is it still. Does it get to you . Absolutely. The thing about talking about. And my life at westboro, to talk about that publicly, it is constantly putting me in conversation with people that idid me in conversation with people that i did real harm to. And it is difficult to face that, but i learned this concepts shortly after i left the church,