Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Phelps Barred From UK
02.19.2009 4:16pm EST
(London) The Rev. Fred Phelps and his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, have been banned from entering the UK.
Phelps announced earlier this week on his Westboro Baptist Church Web site that his followers would demonstrate a production of the play “The Laramie Project” at a British college on Friday. It marked the first foray by the anti-gay Topeka Kansas church into the UK.UK Border Agency said Phelps and his daughter, reportedly the number two person in the church, will be stopped by immigration officials if the try to enter the country and immediately placed on a flight back to the US.
“The Home Secretary has excluded both Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from the UK,” a spokesperson for the Agency said Thursday.
“Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behavior by inciting hatred against a number of communities. The Government has made it clear it opposes extremism in all its forms.”
The move comes a week after the government blocked Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the country over his extremist views on Islam.
“We will continue to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country. That was the driving force behind the tighter rules on exclusion for unacceptable behavior that the Home Secretary announced on 28th October last year,” the Border Agency spokesperson said.
“The Laramie Project” is based on the Shepard murder. It will be performed Friday night at the Central Studio arts venue at Queen Mary’s College.
The Phelps group in announced the planned protest on its Web site under the headline “God Hates England; Your Queen Is A Whore.”
Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church followers regularly stage noisy protests against homosexuality throughout the US.
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 Shepard.
British LGBT rights group Stonewall and local Member of Parliament, Maria Miller (C) asked the government to intervene and block Phelps from entering Britain.
Westboro regularly pickets throughout the US, but often threatens demonstrations without showing up.
The group was a no-show at President Barrack Obama’s inauguration despite announcing it would protest.
That’s nice. Shirley won’t have to leave the comfort of her asylum. She can sue the government of the UK for some damn thing or other right from her padded cell.
Please, can the USA ban them too? Please?
Too bad the U.S. can’t refuse entry when they are returned from the U.K.
A Toast to the UK !!
Can UK immigration put them on a plane to somewhere else?
Congratulatiions United Kingdom! Wish we could stop him here in America but I won’t stop trying! Wish all his actions were more publised so more people can see his evilness. Thank you again UK.
I suggested as much here on this site a few days ago on an earlier 365gay.com Phelps and I am glad to see the UK government sees them as a threat to their country and is barring them entry as it should. It is easy enough to declare them persona non grata (unwanted person (s) or a threat to our communities or however a land accomplishes the lawful refusal of entry to well-known unsavory characters of international ill-repute threatening the peace, the order or security of a country and its citizens.
Send them to Iran…!
Send them to the Bermuda Triagle. Least we can pay back the aliens for all the crop circles and anal probes.
I think morgan and I have found something to agree on! =))
obama needs to call the queen and tell her to take this group off the USA governments hands. may he suggest locking them up in the tower of london as a tourist attraction
Barack needs to call the queen suggesting they take the phelps group off the usa’s hands. may he suggest locking them up in the tower of london as a tourist attraction
Bravo for the Uk! In all actual fact, I can’t believe such people exist. To have an extreme point of view is one thing but to make it your life’s work? BtW what happend to the law suit they lost?
If I were the UK, I wouldn’t want those yahoos coming into the country either!
I went to their website and it is so confusing. i don’t remember learning all that stuff growing up from sunday school. i feel slightly brain washed