1990: Anti-Gay Church Leader Runs for Governor of Kansas

Lawyer and ordained minister Fred Phelps, the leader of the virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) of Topeka, Kansas (see November 27, 1955 and After), runs for governor of Kansas as a Democrat. He disseminates flyers attacking other gubernatorial candidates, as well as other state politicians, in what the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will call “unusually personal terms.” He loses in the primary, winning 6.7 percent of the votes cast. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2001]