Megan Phelps-Roper

Megan Phelps-Roper was raised in the Westboro Baptist Church -- the fire-and-brimstone religious sect at once aggressively homophobic and anti-Semitic, and jubilant about AIDS and natural disasters. From the age of five, Megan participated in the church's picketing almost daily and spearheaded the use of social media in the church. Dialogue with "enemies" online proved instrumental in her deradicalization, and in 2012, at the age of twenty-six, Megan left the church, her family, and her life behind. Since then she has become an advocate for people and ideas she was taught to despise -- especially the value of empathy in dialogue with people across ideological lines.