1992: Anti-Gay Minister Runs for Senate, Slurs Opponent

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 the US Senate. Though he calls his opponent a “bull dike” (a missppelled accusation that his opponent is a lesbian), Phelps wins almost 31 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2001] Phelps ran for governor of Kansas in 1990, and won less than seven percent of the Democratic primary vote (see 1990).