LONDON (RNS) Britain has barred an American anti-gay Christian preacher and his daughter from entering the country, to stop them from spreading what the government described as “extremism and hatred.”
The Rev. Fred Phelps, who has gained notoriety in the United States for picketing the funerals of American servicemen, and daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper had planned to protest at a performance in Britain of a play dramatizing the real-life murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard 10 years ago.
But the Home Office, Britain’s Interior Department, stopped their plans to land here before their flight even got off the ground in the United States, claiming that “both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behavior by inciting hatred against a number of communities.”
Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., campaigns against gays under the slogan “God Hates Fags” and insists that the United States is “doomed” because it tolerates homosexual behavior.
Phelps and his daughter planned to picket a Friday (Feb. 20) performance of “The Laramie Project,” which describes the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo. Phelps’ church Web site calls the play a “hate-crime hoax” that is “predicated on a lie.”
The British government said in a statement that it “has made it clear it opposes extremism in all its forms” and that it would “stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country.”
