"This is just preaching," Phelps responds.

"This is just preaching," Phelps responds. "Picketing is just preaching, what I've been doing for 40-some years. We picket because it is the only avenue left
to us, and it is so powerful."
"The people they go after are the children and the little gray-haired old ladies, not gays," responds W. Gerald Weeks, the pastor of First Lutheran Church.
Phelps has targeted Weeks's church, Weeks says, because he mistakenly believes First Lutheran permits same-sex marriages and gay ministers.
Phelps denies that his groups' attacks get violent or even profane. But his denial is belied by a videotape made byPhelps's own people. It is expected to be
used as evidence in an upcoming trial.
Scene: the lawn of First Lutheran Church on a sunny Sunday morning, Labor Day weekend 1993. The mellifluous voices of the Phelps children and grandchildren
can be heard in the background, an angelic choir, as the camera centers on the determined face of Rev. Weeks, already suited up for the day's worship service
in his ministerial garb. He is holding a small hammer in his hand, driving a sign into the grass that reads "God's Love Speaks Loudest."
A finger points in his face and words are exchanged. Weeks, visibly angered, makes a disgusted downward swipe with the small tool, directed at no one in
particular.The hammer head falls off and onto the ground, rolling about. The picketers dissolve in shrieks of protest, accusing Weeks of hitting them.
"You're a violent, evil man!" screams lawyer Margie J.Phelps, one of Fred's daughters. Four people wrestle Weeks to the ground, sitting on him, pinning an
arm behind his back and holding his face in the dirt, claiming they are making a "citizen's arrest." After horrified parishioners implore the picketers to
release Weeks, he sits up, looking woozy, his gray hair mussed and his eyes unfocused. In the background, Margie Phelps's voice can be heard: "We will have
our theology and we won't be attacked because of it. You keep that wild man under control."
Eventually, two of Phelps's sons -- Jonathan, a 300-pounder, and Timothy -- along with two other Westboro Baptist Church members, were charged with battery
and unlawful restraint. Margie Phelps was charged with filing a false police report. The trial is scheduled for later this year.
Fred Phelps calls the Rev. Weeks a "bloody murdering thug."
A Silent Majority?