Nathan Phelps

Nathan Phelps
Phelps speaking at QED, Manchester, UK in 2014
Born	(1958-11-22) November 22, 1958 (age 59) Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
Residence	Calgary, Alberta
Nationality	Canadian, American
Known for	LGBT rights activist, Atheist activist, Calgary branch director for the Centre for Inquiry Canada, son of former Westboro Baptist Church pastor Fred Phelps
Children	6 (3 step children)
Parent(s)	Fred Phelps
Relatives	Shirley Phelps-Roper (sister) Megan Phelps-Roper (niece)

Nathan "Nate" Phelps (born November 22, 1958) is an American-Canadian author, LGBT rights activist, and public speaker on the topics of religion and child abuse. He is the sixth-born of the 13 children of Fred Phelps, from whom he – along with three of his siblings – had been estranged since his 18th birthday in 1976 until his father's death in 2014. Phelps permanently left Westboro Baptist Church in 1980 and has since publicly censured the group.

Other members of the Phelps family have also left, most recently Megan Phelps-Roper in 2012 and Zach Phelps-Roper in February 2014.

Phelps was born in Topeka, Kansas on November 22, 1958. From birth until age 18, Phelps lived with his parents Fred and Margie in his hometown. Although he attended a local public school, beyond that his life revolved around his father's Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which adjoined their family home inside a walled compound. Attendance at scheduled sermons was strictly enforced, and after-school time was largely committed to raising money for the Church through selling candy. Later this was eclipsed by participation in his father's intensive exercise program, which would routinely involve Phelps and his siblings running 5 or 10 miles (8-16 km) after school, accompanied by participation in a fad diet.

Phelps describes his father as "deeply prejudiced", and also violent and abusive, and gives accounts of receiving extended beatings with a leather strap and later with a handle. Phelps' brother Mark and sister Dortha have corroborated Phelps' claims of physical abuse by their father.

On his 18th birthday, Phelps left his family home. Still in internal conflict, he abandoned his family and the WBC, despite his then deeply-held belief that this meant he would go immediately to hell. In great fear of having his escape interrupted by his abusive father, Phelps made a clandestine nighttime getaway in an old car he had bought specifically for this purpose, with little plan or preparation beyond this. He slept the first night in the men's room of a nearby gas station.

Phelps left WBC prior to the start of the Church's high-profile picketing activities, and has attributed the onset of Church picketing to his father's exclusion from the legal profession.