Opinionist: God Hates Fags - Coming to a School Near You. UK

[Joanne98]

The considered opinion of the Westboro Baptist Church.In the UK, we can generally ignore our attention-seeking religious bigots. We see them as a trifling nuisance who, when starved of media oxygen, fade into obscurity. Take Stephen Green from Christian Voice, who you'll remember as the man who organised the Jerry Springer: The Opera protests. So abysmal and ineffective was their campaign that they actually contributed to the repeal of our archaic blasphemy laws! Green regularly hands out leaflets denouncing the sins of homosexuality, divorce, sex education and abortion, but was still able to claim, with a straight face, that the atheist bus adverts were a bad idea because, and I quote, "people don't like being preached at". Truly, future historians will consider Christian Voice among the finest examples of what they will no doubt label "The Decade of Epic Fail". Dealing with his sort is very easy - all you need to do is remember the name of him and his organisation, and then ignore every single newspaper article that either reports his press releases as genuine news, or feels the need, in the name of "balance", to turn to him for a quote.

However, America has a much more vicious breed of zealot - The Westboro Baptist Church. Run by pastor Fred Phelps, these douchebags believe that God hates America, and indeed the world, because we allow and accept homosexuality. They make signs proclaiming "God Hates Fags" "Thank God for AIDS" and "Thank God For 9/11", and display them at gay rights marches, political rallies, and even funerals. You read that right - they picket funerals. Anyone is fair game, be it the students who died at Virginia Tech, the victims of the Amish School Shooting, and even the funerals of dead soldiers. They preach hate, they say, "because the Bible preaches hate", and they picket funerals because "when people go to funerals, they have thoughts of mortality, heaven, hell, eternity... on their minds. It's the perfect time to warn them of things to come".

And now, they're coming to London.

On March 27th, from 2pm to 3pm, they'll attempt to picket George Tomlinson Primary School in Waltham Forest, Leytonstone - a school whose LGBT history month has, so the TES reports, "virtually eliminated homophobic bullying". Their vitriolic and barely-literate press release has to be seen to be believed. Most interestingly, they don't seem to be very troubled by the fact, that, er, they've been banned from entering the UK. But as Fred's daughter Shirley points out, "There are members of WBC that are not named Phelps, so might have their work cut out for them."

Clearly, there's no danger of them converting anyone - their church has less than 100 members, most of whom are directly related to ol' Fred - but the distress they cause to others from their relentless campaigning simply cannot be overstated. These venomous pests have just two objectives in their life: to preach hate, and to create as much heartache and sorrow in others as they possibly can.

We Londoners have two choices. Our first is to treat them like we treat Christian Voice: by ignoring them. Don't give them a single moment of attention, and hope that they go away. This is a charming idea, and one which I dearly wish would work, but a quick glance at their history shows that this simply won't happen. And besides, rational thinking clearly isn't something that comes naturally to them.

Our second choice is to fight back - and hard. With that in mind, why not book next Friday off of work, and protest against their protest? Take rainbow flags, take leaflets and colour and music and fun, and most importantly, take some interesting picket signs. I suggest "God Hates Fred Phelps", "God Hates Westboro Baptist Church", or as a friend of mine suggested, "God Hates Overcompensating For Obvious Closet Homosexuality". Can you think of any other equally appropriate picket slogans? Please do let us know in the comments.

http://londonist.com/2009/03/opinionist_god_hates_fags_-_coming.php

[T_i_B]

1. Er, the UK Government has denied Phelps entry

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7898972.stm

A father and daughter from a US church which preaches hatred of homosexuals have been banned from entering the UK.

Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) had urged protests against a play being put on in Hampshire.

The UK Border Agency said it opposed "extremism in all its forms". A spokesman added: "Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behaviour by inciting hatred against a number of communities.

"We will continue to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country.