Banished : surviving my years in the Westboro Baptist Church / Lauren Drain with Lisa Pulitzer.
Material type:
TextPublication details: New York : Grand Central Pub., 2013.Edition: 1st edDescription: 295 p. : ill. ; 24 cmISBN: - 1455512427 (hbk.)
- 1455512435 (ebk.)
- 9781455512423 (hbk.)
- 9781455512430 (ebk.)
- Banished : a memoir : surviving my years in the Westboro Baptist Church
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
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Main Library | Biography | Drain, L. D759 | Available | 33111007100957 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Banished is an eye-opening, deeply personal account of life inside the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance.
You've likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps you've seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of the recent Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti- practically everything and everyone. And they aren't going anywhere: in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC's right to picket funerals.
Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later.
Lauren spent her early years enjoying a normal life with her family in Florida. But when her formerly liberal and secular father set out to produce a documentary about the WBC, his detached interest gradually evolved into fascination, and he moved the entire family to Kansas to join the church and live on their compound. Over the next seven years, Lauren fully assimilated their extreme beliefs, and became a member of the church and an active and vocal picketer. But as she matured and began to challenge some of the church's tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out from the church and permanently cut off from her family and from everyone else she knew and loved.
Banished is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.
"A memoir"--Jacket.
"In the tradition of Escape and Stolen innocence, the first look behind the curtains of the Westboro Baptist Church, by a young woman cast out from its clutches"--Provided by the publisher.
Lauren Drain's childhood seemed average American, but when her liberal-minded father set out to film a documentary about the audacious and cultish hate group, the Westboro Baptist Church, he found himself seduced. At 14, Lauren was moved with her family to Kansas to live in the Westboro compound. There, Lauren found a new community offering both a warm welcome and a complex set of rules and regulations, including curbs on her teenage freedom and punishments meted out unjustly. The WBC's modus operandi is its aggressive and vitriolic campaigns against anyone and everyone it deems immoral or sinful--the U.S. military, the Catholic Church, homosexuals, and more. Over the next seven years, Lauren would try to assimilate their extreme beliefs. She traveled the country as an active and vocal picketer, spouting the church's message of hate at public events, with shockingly offensive signs promoting their agenda. But as she matured and began to question and bristle against some of the church's tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out, and permanently cut off from her family. BANISHED is the story of one young woman's journey into and out of a world of extremists, and of building a positive new life out of the ashes of her old one.--From publisher description.