The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is an American unaffiliated Baptist church known for its extreme ideologies, especially those against gay people.[3] The church is widely described as a hate group[4] and is monitored as such by the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center. It was headed by Fred Phelps (although shortly before his death in March 2014, church representatives said that the church had not had a defined leader in "a very long time"),[5] and consists primarily of members of his extended family;[6] in 2011, the church stated that it had about 40 members.[1] The church is headquartered in a residential neighborhood on the west side of Topeka about three miles (5 km) west of the Kansas State Capitol. Its first public service was held on the afternoon of November 27, 1955.[7]