Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Anti-gay Phelps group barred from entering Canada
08.08.2008 11:30am EDT
(Winnipeg, Manitoba) Members of an anti-gay group which describes itself as a church have been barred from entering Canada, according to published reports.
The Canadian Press and the Canwest News Service both report that the group, from Rev. Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, were turned back when they attempted to enter Canada at a border crossing south of Winnipeg on Thursday.The Canadian government has not commented on the reports, but Pat Martin, a New Democratic Party member of Parliament from Winnipeg, says he asked Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day to send an alert to the border patrol to look out “for people with signs and pamphlets that fit the hateful messages that the church promotes and to keep them out of the country.”
Canadian hate laws give the government the power to deny entry to people likely to violate the law. The so-called church was listed as a hate group under the law following previous protests.
Phelps, who runs the “God Hates Fags” website, had threatened to picket the Winnipeg funeral of a man decapitated on a Greyhound bus. Another passenger is charged with the sensational killing.
Phelps had threatened to protest the funeral of Tim McLean to show Canadians the murder was God’s response to liberal Canadian policies toward homosexuality.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, Phelps’ daughter and a frequent spokesperson for the “church” confirmed to both Canwest and CP that a small group of protesters was stopped at the Canada-U. S. border Thursday afternoon.
They won’t let us in, but we have a group that will cross in another spot,” she told the Canwest Winnipeg Free Press. “They’ll have to strip search everyone who crosses that border or they won’t know who we are. They’ll have to see the WBC [Westboro Baptist Church] tattoo on our butts.”
In addition to the threatened protest at the McLean funeral the group had said it would demonstrate in Toronto where a satirical play titled “The Pastor Phelps Project” is being performed. No members of the church showed up for the demonstration, which had been planned for Thursday evening.
Westboro Baptist members frequently demonstrate at funerals for American servicemembers killed in Iraq. The group claims the deaths are God’s punishment on America for being too pro-gay.
Westboro’s members are made up mostly of Phelps’ relatives. Although it professes to be Baptist it is not affiliated with any national Baptist group.
Westboro operates Web sites including GodHatesFags and GodHatesAmerica and has been described as a cult.
Phelps and the church first came to national attention when he organized a protest by his followers outside the 1998 funeral for Matthew Shepherd, the gay college student who was beaten to death in Wyoming. The killing, Phelps’ protest, and the reaction of townsfolk led to the play “The Laramie Project.”
Church members routinely demonstrate at the funerals of people with AIDS and most recently at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.
Much as I detest Fred and Shirley and all that they stand for, there is a matter of free speech involved. Disallowing the Phelps clan sets a very bad precident for others who may wish to cross the border to protest, whatever.
Hopefully they will get in to protest and someone there will shoot them all.
There are well defined limits on free speech in Canada and laws against spreading hate.
I believe my govenment did the right thing. It even made the NDP and Conservatives agree.
“Entering Canada by a U.S. citizen isn’t an absolute right, and if you’re coming here only to disrupt the social order and to promote what we consider to be bordering on hate crimes or hate language, they shouldn’t come into Canada” MP Pat Martin -New Democratic Party
I just don’t understand how this group of “HateMongers” can still be classified as a church and receive the benefits of a religious organization. Or am I wrong, perhaps they are no longer classified as such, can anyone set me straight on this.
More power to the Canadians! I think they have their hearts and minds in the right place. Free speech does not include yelling “Fire” in a packed theatre and the disgusting screech of the clan of Phelps and his followers should be classified the same. Hateful speach invoking violence should not be considered free speech. ‘Nuff said.
WTG Canada
These people make me ashamed to admit that I am from Kansas.
The Canadian government seems so sensible when it comes to such matters and I think they did the right thing by not allowing these hatemongerers admittance. I fully support the right of free speech and recognize Canada’s sovereignty to determine when the right to freedom of speech comes heavily laden with hatred and the unethical imperative to foster hatred based on bigotry.
Confucius famously said: ‘The exemplary person seeks harmony rather than conformity, the petty person seeks conformity rather than harmony.’
Most Canadians believe that social equality (harmony rather than conformity) is more important than personal freedom. Absolute free speech is not a right most Canadians value. This is one of the reasons as to why Canada legalized same-sex marriage: we tend to ask ‘how can we regularize this?’ rather than ‘how can we restrict this?’ It is one of the heavy prices we have to pay for living without the intrusion of fundamentalism into the public square.
As a Canadian, I am proud that our government has barred members of the Westboro Baptist Church from entering Canada (as I had expected it would). I hope that the members of the WBC have their tattoos excised with a rusty hacksaw down to the deep dermal layer, but that’s probably too much to hope for, even in Canada.
Kudos for Canada to keep Fred ‘the fag’ Phelps out of Canada.
Shame on 365gay.com for continuing to afford him the title of Rev and validate his being a “Christian”.
For a guy who did the boys at the McFarland Reststop outside of Topeka from 1967-1975, he sure escapes the ‘gay’ moniker doesn’t he? Why?
Americans need to understand they can not impose their will on other sovereign nations. Canada is not a second class American territory. As a sovereign nation Canada has the right to limit who is allowed entry into the country. U.S. constitutional rights do not extend beyond the boarders of the U.S.A. Americans need to understand the world does not revolve around them. I applaud Canada for standing up for it’s sovereignty.
While everyone has the right to their own personal opinion, there has to be a line drawn when that person’s opinion is deemed to be hateful and demeaning especially when it is exhibited in a public forum. Canada and Canadians as a whole have toiled over 141 years to make our country the kind of country where people can feel safe and be who they are and not have to put up with others who wish to incite hate and violence against them. While we may not have a perfect paradise in our land, we are still working on it, and if it is our choice to deny entry to our sovereign land to bigots, homophobes, and so called religious right fanaticals, then that is our choice for which we all stand up for. In addition, I would like to know why and how it is that anyone with any common sense could possibly conceive that this incident of violence towards an innocent on a Greyhound Bus has absolutely anything to do with the “God hates fags” poisonous venom that keeps spurting out of the mouths of the Phelps clan and their so called “church”. Give it up Fred and Shirley - nobody is buying it!!
just the sight of anything to do with this piece of shit makes me really sick. one look and you can see the insanity he projects. believe it or not their”church”was expelled from indiana after an unreal protest of a soldiers burial with this mans family and friends in total shock at the shouts and signs from a complete stranger. why he feels this hate so vehemently only his god would know.
I’m sorry Larry Said. This is not a matter of free speech. I’m so glad Canada did this. Hate, by any means or any name, is not a right and should not be protected by the law. Free speech should include ideas for change and betterment of the country or an idea, but not to spread hate. This group should be disbanded and all arrested and charged with hate crimes. It is time for all people to stand up against hate of any form. There is a fine line between the right to protest under the law, and spreading a message of hate that promotes killings and death of another human being. That man and his church step far across that line and should not be tolerated, even by those that do support free speech, as I do.
Way to go Canada, they did the right thing not allowing the Phelps “Church” of hate into their country to spread hate by forcing their way into an already tragic event.
I also think there is no reason that 365 gay or any other news service should call the Phelps cult a church let alone when it is associated with a Christan Church because it cares non of the values it pretends to hold dear.
I hope Canada takes a page from the ole Dumya manual to charge them as terrorists and torture them! Not really, but they deserve it!