Controlled opposition doesn't always mean a plant. A person can be completely sincere and still be controlled opposition; if they get a shit ton of negative media attention far beyond their actual relevance because they have the worst optics ever, will always take the bait, and are similar enough to a larger, actually relevant group that the group can be tainted by association.
In that regard, Westboro Baptist Church was unquestioningly, zero doubt about it, controlled opposition. Do you really think that these 40 idiots in a bumfuck town who never accomplished anything besides piss off everyone by waving signs and being obnoxious, deserved the mountains of international media coverage they got? What about them was actually news worthy?
People who commit mass murder get less media coverage. A LOT less.
Pretty much this.
Plus there's the fact that all that media coverage ceased overnight once Phelps died....
Considering the fact that Phelps did all that Civil Rights legal activism despite being a stone cold racist solely because of the paychecks and the publicity, I have no doubt he'd do the same thing for the LGBT rights movement. Even if it meant effectively being the coup de grace for the already mortally wounded Religious Right in the late 2000's.
I would not be surprised if Phelps was at least partly aware of this in his later years and knew he was giving his critics what they wanted. He loved money and he loved the attention, and I also wouldn't be surprised if he had some warped religious reason for it, thinking he could accelerate the Second Coming of Christ by making the world as wicked and anti-Christian as he possibly could.
A lot of WBC's rhetoric backs this theory, considering they have said they have no interest in trying to convert people but to expose the "sinful wickedness of their hearts" whenever they do their asinine protests.
WBC was very much controlled opposition and had outlived its usefulness after Phelps died.
It doesn't not matter if Fred Phelps was aware of it and just went along with it for his own ulterior motives or if he was really that dumb or zealous enough to play right into the mainstream media's hands.
Westboro Baptist Church only had as much influence as the media would give them. Everyone hated them, including the entirety of the Religious Right and even the fucking KKK.
Jack Chick had more respectability by comparison, and some of his less overtly insane tracts are often circulated by mainstream churches, particularly "This Is Your Life" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" when it gets close to Christmas.
In many ways, Chick was the antithesis of Fred Phelps since he went above and beyond to avoid media attention and publicity.
There's a reason why so many people thought he was a pseudonym for multiple artists and authors or someone doing a stealth parody right up until he died in 2016.
they would turn up at their funerals shouting 'LOL, burn in hell fags'.
