"A small religious community from Kansas, notorious for picketing funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq have said they are to protest in England. The Westboro Baptist Church is led by Rev Fred Phelps.
Among the events on the 'picket schedule' on their website godhatesfags.com is a performance of The Laramie Project in Basingstoke next week."
This is a quote from this article on PinkNews whom I alerted to the story last night. I found out about it on a social site.
I also got in touch with my MP (bi-tastic Simon Hughes). I am curious to see what sort of response I will get to this.
More importantly I talked to my local LGBT Liaison Police Officer. He passed the info to the Hampshire Police force who didn't know about it! They have been in touch with the school to make sure nothing untoward has happened so far and will now have people at the ready during the run of the show.
He also went to the Met's Diversity Directorate who are looking into the possibility of denying them access to the country...
Fingers crossed...
I am not the only one who did something though. Other people have complained and I hear (from that same social website) that Brian Blessed who is a patron of the school has been alerted through his agent.
For those who don't know about the Church (they are the one behind the infamous God Hates Fags website), here is their wikipedia entry.
Among the events on the 'picket schedule' on their website godhatesfags.com is a performance of The Laramie Project in Basingstoke next week."
This is a quote from this article on PinkNews whom I alerted to the story last night. I found out about it on a social site.
I also got in touch with my MP (bi-tastic Simon Hughes). I am curious to see what sort of response I will get to this.
More importantly I talked to my local LGBT Liaison Police Officer. He passed the info to the Hampshire Police force who didn't know about it! They have been in touch with the school to make sure nothing untoward has happened so far and will now have people at the ready during the run of the show.
He also went to the Met's Diversity Directorate who are looking into the possibility of denying them access to the country...
Fingers crossed...
I am not the only one who did something though. Other people have complained and I hear (from that same social website) that Brian Blessed who is a patron of the school has been alerted through his agent.
For those who don't know about the Church (they are the one behind the infamous God Hates Fags website), here is their wikipedia entry.
There is, of course, talk of a counter-demonstration in support of the play. It might well be possible to mobilize both a substantial Christian and Queer contingent. After all, Phelps makes Christians look very, very BAD! Therefore, even those who are not personally attacked by his homophobia may see it as a call to bear witness to their faith with the quiet dignity this subject demands.
ReplyDeleteWhat one wishes to avoid is any opportunity for a lazy press to trot out a boiler-plate “angry demonstrators clashed” script. It’s a safe line to take for a cub journalist because it avoids any accusation of partiality. While not hypocritically smiling sweetly at Phelps, the most powerful message would be that Christians stand together with social liberals in not condemning Matthew Shepard; that God’s Grace is not in our gift. “Judge not lest ye be judged.” (Matthew 7:1)