How Brittany Murphy's death led woman to quit Westboro Baptist Church

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Megan Phelps-Roper walked away from Westboro Baptist Church in 2012
Granddaughter of hate group's founder had doubts for years before
They started following the tragic death of actress Brittany Murphy in 2009
Phelps-Roper was saddened by news while other members were overjoyed
Her own mother celebrated famine in Somalia while she burst out crying
Phelps-Roper, now 29, quit the church and has little contact with her family

Published: 22:32 EST, 22 November 2015 | Updated: 02:20 EST, 23 November 2015

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The granddaughter of the founder of Westboro Baptist Church has revealed how the hate group's reaction to the death of actress Brittany Murphy led to her quitting the church.

Megan Phelps-Roper, 29, found out about Murphy's tragic death in 2009 on Twitter, and read the news aloud to other members of the church.

Phelps-Roper, who had enjoyed watching the star in the movie Clueless, said she was horrified to see how happy her friends and family were that the celebrity had died.

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Megan Phelps-Roper (pictured in 2011), the granddaughter of the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, first doubted the hate group after seeing other members' reaction to the death of actress Brittany Murphy

Phelps-Roper (left), who had enjoyed watching Murphy (right) in the movie Clueless, said she was horrified to see how happy her friends and family were that the celebrity had died

Hate: Phelps-Roper, pictured outside the funeral of a marine in 2006, eventually quit the church in 2012

Murphy died aged just 32 from a combination of pneumonia and anemia.

The news plunged Hollywood into mourning and shocked millions of people around the world, but Phelps-Roper found her family reveling in the tragedy.

She told the New Yorker that it was the first time she considered leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, which was founded by her now-dead grandfather Fred Phelps.

As the younger face of the church - which is known and hated for its picketing of funerals of US servicemen and hatred of homosexuals - Phelps-Roper manned its Twitter account.

She would often use the profile to stir up vitriol online by posting obnoxious statements accompanied by passages from the Bible.

This would include celebrating the deaths of celebrities, saying, for example, that it was a sign from God that America was being punished for accepting gay people.

Another reason Phelps-Roper (right) quit was that her mother Shirley (left) enjoyed reading about a famine in Somalia, while she was upset by it

Phelps-Roper has apologized to many of those she offended and has had little contact with her family since walking away from the hate group three years ago

But she could not bring herself to send such a tweet about Murphy.

'I felt like I would be such a jackass to go on and post something like that,' she said.

'Lots of people were talking about going to picket her funeral,' she added.

Two years later and Phelps-Roper was again doubting whether the church was the right place for her.

In July 2011, she burst into tears while reading a story about famine in Somalia, where children were dying of starvation.

When her mother, Shirley, asked what was wrong, she showed her the article.

Later that day her mother wrote a blog post about the famine, saying: 'Thank God for famine in East Africa! God is longsuffering and patient, but he repays the wicked!'

Phelps-Roper and her sister Grace eventually left the church in 2012 after months of considering quitting.

'I just couldn't keep up the charade,' she said. 'I couldn't bring myself to do the things we were doing and say the things we were saying.'

Phelps-Roper still tweets from the same account she used while a member of Westboro Baptist Church, but has left the rest of that life behind.

She has apologized to many of those she offended and has had little contact with her family since walking away from the hate group three years ago.

WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH: THE HOUSE OF GOD THAT PREACHES HATE

The Westboro Baptist Church teaches that homosexuality is the root of all evil and that anyone who refuses to denounce it is the cause of all tragedies, including war deaths.

At protests they brandish placards with phrases such as 'Thank God for IEDs, 'Fag soldier in hell' and 'Soldiers die 4 fag marriage'.

In an interview in 2010, founder Fred Phelps explained that 'the Lord Almighty called on me to preach'.

'I don't think this country can be saved, but I have a duty to preach it anyway,' he said. 'That's the mission: to preach it even if that soldier's widow doesn't want you to. It's irrelevant what she wants. My job is to preach it without timidity.'

In 2012, half-a-million people signed petitions asking the White House to crack down on Westboro Baptist Church after the group threatened to picket in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six staff members were killed by a gunman.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, has called the church 'arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America' because of the anti-gay signs its members carry.

But the church has gone to court to defend its right to protest.

In March 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the group's funeral protests were protected speech under the First Amendment in a suit brought by Albert Snyder, the father of a Marine who had died in Iraq.

The protesters had carried signs that stated, 'God Hates You,' 'You Are Going To Hell' and 'Thank God for Dead Soldiers' at his son's funeral.

But not all the protests were without consequence.

In 1998, he led protesters outside the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was killed because he was gay.

Eleven years later, President Obama signed a law making crimes against perceived sexual orientation a hate crime.

In 2006, President George W. Bush signed a law establishing that picketing was banned with a 150-foot zone of a military funeral within an hour of the service.

In August 2012, Obama increased the area to 300 feet within two hours of the service.