Fred Phelps Jr., the son of the head of the Westboro Baptist Church Fred Phelps, knows what caused the massive tornadoes in Oklahoma. It was the fact that Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma Thunder spoke in support of Jason Collins coming out as the first openly gay active player in a major US professional sport.

God truly works in mysterious ways. It seems he dislikes support for gays more than he dislikes gays themselves, since otherwise he would have devastated Washington DC, which is where Collins’s team is based. Also, being all-knowing and all, god would likely have known that Collins was gay all along so it looks like he is cool with it as long as you keep quiet about it.

A few months ago, I wrote about how Megan (27) and Grace Phelps-Roper (24) had had enough of the Westboro church and had escaped from the clan to start a new life. What was significant about them is that they are the daughters of Shirley Phelps-Roper, the daughter of founder and patriarch Fred Phelps and currently the chief spokesperson for the church. The Los Angeles Times came out two days ago with an article that describes how their older sister Libby (now 30) defected from the church even earlier in 2009, what made her want to leave, and how she stole away from the closed community that she had been a fervent member of for so long. Libby describes how she feels so much guilt now at having picketed at the funerals of so many people and the harm that she caused.

Apparently yet another sister, older than Libby, had defected even earlier as had a brother Josh. But Shirley Phelps-Roper has 11 children so six of them are still within the group. But for how long, it is hard to tell. They are clearly in decline.