A planned mass protest of a staging of the Matthew Shepard play The Laramie Project in the United Kingdom fell flat over the weekend when only one person turned up to demonstrate.
Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper had announced plans to travel to the U.K. to protest a staging of the play but were barred from entering the country. According a border agency spokesperson, Phelps and his daughter are not allowed to enter the country because their "extremist" hate is considered dangerous.
"Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behavior by inciting hatred against a number of communities," a U.K. Border Agency spokesperson told The Telegraph last week. "The government has made it clear it opposes extremism in all its forms.
"We will continue to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred, and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country."
Phelps-Roper responded to the ban by saying the decision would "bring great wrath upon your heads."
In contrast to the one protester who showed up to demonstrate outside Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke, some 50 students protested against Phelps's Westboro Baptist Church outside the college on Friday.
Phelps, the Phelps family, and members of his Kansas church have regularly picketed the funerals of gay men and women as well as U.S. soldiers, claiming their deaths are punishment for America's tolerance of gays and lesbians. (Advocate.com)
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