(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.