FUN FACT:
Members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church are banned from the UK
In February 2009, the WBC announced that they intended to picket a youth production of The Laramie Project, a play about a hate crime motivated by homophobia. On the lead-up to the picket, a number of MPs, lobby groups and LGBT groups appealed to the UK’s Home Secretary, requesting these individuals be blocked from entering the UK, on the basis that WBC would be inciting hatred towards LGBT people.
Two days before the intended picket date, the Home Office announced that Fred Phelps (pictured above) and Shirley Phelps-Roper would be specifically excluded from entering the UK for having “engaged in unacceptable behaviour by inciting hatred against a number of communities”, and that “other church members could also be flagged and stopped if they tried to enter Britain.”
(Via: Rob Coe, Information: Wikipedia, Photo: Eric D. Snider)
