Today’s two-part show takes up issues of protest and extremist religious activism. In the first segment, attorney Patricia Hammel offers updates on the new, quietly-passed legislation known as the “pipeline trespass bill” (Assembly Bill 426) that has serious consequences for environmental protesters in Wisconsin.
For the remainder of the show (starting at 17:10), Esty is in conversation with Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church who writes about her journey leaving the fold in her new memoir, Unfollow. She talks about what it was like growing up in the church, the year-and-a-half long process of being de-radicalized, and what she’s since learned about social and political discourse and communicating across difference.
Megan Phelps-Roper is a writer and activist based in South Dakota. She left the Westboro Baptist Church in November 2012 and is now an educator on topics related to extremism and communication across ideological lines. She is the author of Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church (Macmillan, 2019).
Megan Phelps-Roper will be in Madison for a free, public event at the Wisconsin Book Festival tomorrow, Saturday, October 19 at 7:30 PM in Community Room 301 & 302 at the Central Library (201 Mifflin Street). More information available here.