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Immigration Minister Praises Gay Labour Campaign to ban Godhatesfags.com Creator
 

■ Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. photo courtesy BBC Television

LONDON, February 25, 2009  –  Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas MP, today publicly thanked the LGBT Labour for their campaign against the homophobic group, Westboro Baptist Church.

The campaign led to the ban on Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from entering the UK by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

“The Home Secretary responded to calls from LGBT Labour – and others – to ban the hateful preachers who run the homophobic website, godhatefags.com,” he said in a statement issued at lunchtime by his House of Commons office.

“Thank you to the LGBT Labour – the Labour Campaign for Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Trans Rights – for their persistence and vigilance.

“The lobbying on the Westboro Baptist Church was timely and precise.  The Home Secretary has confirmed the exclusion order.

“I am grateful to the group whose arguments were strong and convincing.  The Labour Government will always oppose homophobia,” he pledged.

Simon Wright, co-chair of LGBT Labour had written to Mr. Woolas about the Westboro Baptist Church’s planned visit to the UK.

Subsequently, the group met with Mr Woolas and spoke regularly on the phone about the issues as they developed.

Fred Phelps had announced that his “church”, which is not part of the Baptist Church, would be picketing a production of The Laramie Project on Friday (February 20) by a theatre group at a Basingstoke School.  In his press release, he even attacked The Queen, using a derogatory remark.

Last week, following the announcement that the Westboro Baptist Church had been banned from entering the country, Mr. Wright said that the ban showed that the Government was taking homophobia very seriously.

“We are very pleased that the Home Secretary has barred these preachers of homophobic hatred from our country. It sends a strong message that homophobia, like other forms of hatred, are not welcome in the UK.”

This weekend, the Westboro Baptist Church is due to picket another production of The Laramie Project, the widely acclaimed ‘documentary’ play about the brutal murder of the gay student Matthew Shepard.

This production in being staged at the Performing Arts Center at Dominican University in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago.

Students at the university have vowed to stage a “silent” counter-protest.

“[All the students] have been sick since they first heard about the Phelps' plans and saw their website to check it out.  They couldn’t believe the hateful talk on it,” a spokesperson told UK Gay News by email last night.

The Westboro Baptist Church congregation is made-up from the extended Phelps family – Fred Phelps has 12 children who are all adults. The group is based in Topeka, Kansas.

In addition to their notorious pickets at productions of The Laramie Project, they also demonstrate at funerals of those who die from Aids.

But their most notorious demonstrations are at funerals of military personnel who have been killed while serving their country in Iraq and Afghanistan.

■ The latest video ‘rant’ from Fred Phelps, titled God Hates the UK, in which he says the Home Secretary has “banned God Almighty from the UK”, can be viewed HERE – warning: remarks on this video are extremely offensive.

SEE ALSO

Evangelical Christians Call for Change of Attitude on Gays.  Several groups of UK evangelical Christians who believe that the churches need a positive change of heart and mind on the issue of homosexuality have called on church organisations condemning an American anti- gay hate group to face up to their own discriminatory policies and behaviour.  (UK Gay News, February 23, 2009)

■ Fred Phelps on a 'hate picket' with the US flag upside down and a mis-quote from the Bible.

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