Ex-Westboro Member Takes You Inside the Anti-Gay Church's Strange World

"They attribute everything to if homosexuals are ruining the country..."

Photo Credit: Lauren Drain

Lauren Drain was a member of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) -- that is, until she was kicked out of the anti-gay religious cohort.

Drain, who now speaks out against the church, released a book today about her experience entitled, "Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church." This morning, she appeared on Glenn Beck's radio show to discuss the radical religious sect.

"I was constantly being inundated with this brainwashing mentality," she told the popular host.

Drain detailed her pathway into the WBC, a membership that took form after her father worked on a documentary about the church. Inevitably, he became interested in leader Fred Phelps' controversial theology and brought his family along with him.

She also explained her expulsion from the church after she was caught speaking with a boy on the Internet who was not a Westboro member. The experience of being cut off from her family was extremely difficult.

Perhaps most noteworthy was Drain's ability to explain, from the perspective of someone who was once on the inside, how the church operates and the lens through which its members see the world.

"They attribute everything to if homosexuals are ruining the country and they attribute everything to that," she said. "They therefore make a connection that if the homosexuals are to blame, acceptance of homosexuals is to blame. Therefore God is going to punish the country in exhibit A, B, and C."

See the segment, below:

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