Westboro Baptist Church: We "Saw Eye to Eye" With Fred Thompson

Members of an antigay church best known across the United States for picketing the funerals of U.S. soldiers say Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson once ''saw eye to eye'' with them on homosexuality. The Westboro Baptist Church is urging Thompson to support its stance.

The church has angered lawmakers in several states by rallying at soldiers' funerals, claiming the deaths are retribution for the United States' acceptance of homosexuality.

Thompson campaign spokeswoman Karen Hanretty on Wednesday dismissed the church as ''a radical fringe group, looking to draw attention to themselves.''

''Their behavior at the funerals of fallen soldiers is disgraceful and reprehensible,'' she said. ''In no way do these people share Fred's values.''

Church members released an open letter to Thompson this week, saying he had once discussed his views on homosexuality with them while handling the mid-1980s case of a woman who had sued Kansas's Republican attorney general for sexual harassment. Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps, recommended him for the case.

''We know what your position used to be on the homosexual question -- and it was wonderful, and we saw eye to eye,'' church members said in the letter.

But that statement appears to conflict with Margie Phelps's comments to the Journal-World newspaper of Kansas in June about her interaction with Thompson. ''I'm quite confident he would've completely disagreed with everything about my faith,'' she told the paper.

Phelps's sister, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said in a phone interview Wednesday that while Thompson might disagree with the church today, he did not disagree then.

And yet Phelps-Roper said, ''he wouldn't dare stand up and say that when he's running for president.''

Thompson, a former U.S. senator, has said he favors a constitutional amendment that bars judges from legalizing same-sex marriage but would leave the door open for state legislatures to act. (AP)

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