Border guards to turn away church group aiming to picket bus victim's funeral

[Praxius]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/08/08/westboro-protest.html

Canadian border guards are under orders to prevent members of a fundamentalist American church from crossing into Canada to protest at the funeral Saturday of a Winnipeg man brutally killed on a Greyhound bus last week.

Westboro Baptist Church, a controversial Kansas-based sect, intends to picket the funeral of 22-year-old Tim McLean to tell Canadians his slaying on July 30 was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and adultery.

"God is punishing Canada for passing laws against WBC — by exposing Canadians as cannibals and highway decapitaters," the church says in a news release on its website, which refers to McLean as "The Headless Canadian."

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day's office sent an alert to border patrol to "look out" for people with signs and pamphlets consistent with the messages that the church promotes and to keep them out of the country, Winnipeg MP Pat Martin told CBC News on Friday.

"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," Martin said.

Well put.

"We're not going to allow these people to compound the tragedy of the McLean family loss, and Canadians simply won't tolerate these lunatics disrupting what should be a respectful service."

Freedom of speech is not absolute, Martin said.

Exactly

"Your freedom to swing your arm in the air ends when it touches the end of my nose," he said. "What these people were going to do was hurtful, harmful and disruptive to the peace, order and good government that we guarantee to our citizens, so they have no place in this country."

Someone put this guy up for election as next PM.

A counter-protest against the church's picket plans was launched on the social networking site Facebook on Thursday. More than 500 people have since joined the group; postings indicate they plan to form a "human wall" around the family to shield them from the church protest, if it takes place.

The Westboro Baptist Church and its founder, Pastor Fred Phelps, gained infamy by protesting gay-pride rallies and the funerals of people who have died from AIDS-related illnesses.

In recent years, church members have also picketed the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming the deaths are also God's punishment for the country's tolerance for homosexuality.

Still love how people think Chrisitans are so much better then Muslims with their mentalities.

Friggin morons would justify stubbing your toe as God's punishment, so long as they can find some crazy position to point their fingers.

I hope they put up a big stink at the border and they all get tasered.

 

[L Gilbert]

As far as I know all religious groups think they are better than the others.

Anyway, I don't think they should be allowed to come here if the only reason is to cause trouble either. But, I hope they don't cause trouble and get tasered. Tasering seems to kill people if not used with caution.

 

[Colpy]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/08/08/westboro-protest.html



Well put.



Exactly



Someone put this guy up for election as next PM.



Still love how people think Chrisitans are so much better then Muslims with their mentalities.

Friggin morons would justify stubbing your toe as God's punishment, so long as they can find some crazy position to point their fingers.

I hope they put up a big stink at the border and they all get tasered.

I also hope these morons get stopped at the border.

BUT
I was brought up a backwoods Baptist, my Dad a deacon in the church. My brother is gay, and is currently working on his PhD in Divinity (Counselling) at a conservative, religious, university in Virginia. His thesis subject matter is the relationship between homosexual;s and the church.

Phelps is an idiot.

The vast majority of fundamentalist Christians would agree with that.

Christianity is, by nature, a religion of tolerance and choice.

To fundamentalist Christians with fundamentalist Muslims is almost as stupid as comparing the human rights record of the USA and China. Phelps is about as bad as the Christians get.........Islamofascists however?

Or didn't you notice the lack of riots, planes flying into buildings, and exploding suicide bombers?

 

[Praxius]

I also hope these morons get stopped at the border.

BUT
I was brought up a backwoods Baptist, my Dad a deacon in the church. My brother is gay, and is currently working on his PhD in Divinity (Counselling) at a conservative, religious, university in Virginia. His thesis subject matter is the relationship between homosexual;s and the church.

Phelps is an idiot.

The vast majority of fundamentalist Christians would agree with that.

Christianity is, by nature, a religion of tolerance and choice.

Same with most Islamic.... the only relation I was attempting to make was how one or a few small groups can make the whole basket of apples look rotten.

To fundamentalist Christians with fundamentalist Muslims is almost as stupid as comparing the human rights record of the USA and China. Phelps is about as bad as the Christians get.........Islamofascists however?

Or didn't you notice the lack of riots, planes flying into buildings, and exploding suicide bombers?

Well I'm sure if we gave these guys enough room and time, we can see what they would truly like to do.

On a side note, I wonder what kind of message God would be sending them if their bus crashed along the way or one of their members went crazy and started carving them up on the bus?

That God understands Irony?

 

[jjaycee98]

A Layman sermon given by a friend of mine last Sunday was intitled-"Too much religion-not enough God. So many zealots seem to forget the message of love and tolerance.

I am taking the Taser remark as an ironic statement-meant as humour.

 

[Praxius]

A Layman sermon given by a friend of mine last Sunday was intitled-"Too much religion-not enough God. So many zealots seem to forget the message of love and tolerance.

I am taking the Taser remark as an ironic statement-meant as humour.

Sorta humor with a bit of sick hope added for spice. (Suits my avatar currently Moooo Hooo Ha ha ha ha.... :twisted: )

 

[eh1eh]

Free citizens everywhere will not let the Westboro crowd perpetrate their acts of hate. Here they are getting chased away by a crowd.

 

[shadowshiv]

Good. Pieces of crap should not have the right to picket funerals like they do. It will be bad enough that the funeral will be a media circus, and they do not need the extra bullcrap that would occur because of those dillweeds.:-(

 

[Kreskin]

Did anyone hear if this group showed up and got their heads kicked in yet?

 

[lone wolf]

Baptist sectism? Hmm ... is there a river nearby for a mass re-dedication?

 

[scratch]

Baptist sectism? Hmm ... is there a river nearby for a mass re-dedication?

Will the border guards know how to handle this?

 

[lone wolf]

Will the border guards know how to handle this?

Just report you heard their Bibles were hollowed out....

 

[scratch]

Just report you heard their Bibles were hollowed out....

In a pack of 'Roos someone is toting!

 

[shadowshiv]

Did anyone hear if this group showed up and got their heads kicked in yet?

The funeral went by quietly, and there was not a single member from that "religious" group there. There were a couple of hundred people that had waited outside to make sure the group wouldn't be a problem if they had shown up. The family thanked them for the support.

 

[karrie]

The funeral went by quietly, and there was not a single member from that "religious" group there. There were a couple of hundred people that had waited outside to make sure the group wouldn't be a problem if they had shown up. The family thanked them for the support.

I had heard about this group. They were calling for a human wall... dressed in funeral appropriate attire, to attend ONLY if they could do so to peacefully place themselves between the protesters and the funeral attendees. The idea was to give the WBC group nothing but a solid wall of unreacting backs to protest to, to show the true nature and resolve of Canadians. Brilliant and moving.

 

[Kreskin]

What a bunch of clueless friggin wackos. I don't think there would've been a chain of backs in their way, there would've been knuckle sandwiches. Maybe a few shots to the head would knock some sense into those morons.

 

[karrie]

What a bunch of clueless friggin wackos. I don't think there would've been a chain of backs in their way, there would've been knuckle sandwiches. Maybe a few shots to the head would knock some sense into those morons.

The family was quite adamant that they wanted a peaceful funeral for their son. So, I think it would have been what they asked for. If there's one thing Canadians are good at (in the larger whole), IMO, it's listening and maintaining peace.

 

[Kreskin]

The family was quite adamant that they wanted a peaceful funeral for their son. So, I think it would have been what they asked for. If there's one thing Canadians are good at (in the larger whole), IMO, it's listening and maintaining peace.

Peaceful if they stayed away. Canadian farm boys were also pretty good at keeping the peace at Vimmy.

 

[lone wolf]

Sort of ironic that these wacked-out Bible thumpers want to stir up so much trouble in the name of the Prince of Peace. Don't they have a comet to go chase?

 

[china]

lone wolf

Quoting scratch Will the border guards know how to handle this?
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Just report you heard their Bibles were hollowed out....

​

Forgot the woof .