UK bans UK anti-gay pastor Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church

[anakie]

Source: The Australian

BRITAIN has barred entry to two members of a US church for inciting hatred against gays and others, the government said on the eve of a planned protest by the radical group.

The Westboro Baptist Church, based in Kansas, has been planning to stage a protest against a play being put on by a gay youth group in southeast England.

But the Home Office, Britain's interior ministry, said Fred Phelps and Shirley Phelps-Roper have been told they cannot travel to Britain because of their views.

.........

'God hates Australia'

On Monday, Westboro Baptist Church announced that God sent the bushfires to Victoria to kill the sinners and that church members would picket the national day of mourning.







Read more: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25082251-12377,00.html

---

Good on the UK; and their views are not welcome in Australia either. Narrow minded bigots they are.


Peace

[defendandprotect]

1. Great news . . . and we need more nations to join in to STOP ...

religious whackos from "inciting hatred against gays and others" --

and that includes from the pulpits, as well ---

If you hear it, turn your back to the pulpit--!!!

[marshall]

46. Now if we could just get them to ban Ahmadinejad

Hopefully he won't be coming back to the US anytime soon to spew his hatred.

[xchrom]

2. can we set him and his peeps afloat in a boat --

and never let them land?

[Baby Snooks]

3. Shame we don't ban them here...

They incite violence here as well. I am one of those who believes strongly in the First Amendment. To a point.

[wtmusic]

14. Strongly, to a point? At what point do they get to turn off your right

to free speech?

I'd be curious to know what harm you think they're doing. If they offend you, do what everyone else does and ignore them.

[No Elephants]

18. I have mixed feelings about banning their hate speech, but I know exactly what harm

it does. Rick Warren's, too.

[wtmusic]

20. What is the harm?

They expose homophobic bigotry for what it is: insane, illogical ranting.

Do you see a movement forming around them, or people distancing themselves from Westboro Baptist? If you were the parent of a slain soldier in Iraq who had some prejudices against homosexuality and they picketed your son's funeral, would you be more or less likely to buy their line about homosexuality as a sin?

[No Elephants]

23. What is the harm? Hate crimes against gays, families shunning their gay relatives bc they are

an abomination to God, these particular nuts causing grief to families of fallen heroes as they try to bury them, disrupting schools, suicides by shamed gay teens and adults, etc. Not to mention corrosion of their own souls and spirits.

[wtmusic]

24. I don't know of any hate crimes which have been inspired by

WBC, or any families that are falling in line. WBC makes it very easy and obvious to hate homophobia.

Let's be honest - no gay teen has ever been shamed or committed suicide based on the lunacy of WBC. As far as the "corrosion of their own souls and spirits" that's a fait accompli.

[No Elephants]

28. Because whenever someone commits a hate crime against gays or a gay gets shamed, you

know exactly what contributed to it?

What gives this group the right to show up at a middle school in Massachusetts and create a scene over a composition, simply because the composition did not condemn gays?

And you are limiting this to Phelps' group and to murder and suicide. British laws are not so limited. Neither are hate speech laws. Neither was my post.

[wtmusic]

29. What gives them the right is the First Amendment

and just because you find what they say offensive doesn't take that right away.

No one has killed themself because of A1, and A1 is not responsible for any particular opinion. Selectively nullifying it in someone else's case allows them to selectively nullify it for you.

I can't believe I have to explain this. Did you ever have a civics class?

[No Elephants]

31. Where do I begin? First, my discussion with you was about the harm

hate speech causes, not whether or not there is a rightto engage in hate speech. Having flailed around with your harm arguments, you not only moved the goal post, you took it off the field and substituted a tennis net, namely "rights" to hate speech.


Since you did bring up the First Amendment clear out of left field, though, there's just nothing like just assuming the conclusion you'd like to reach, is there?

Whether or not restrictions on hate speech violate the First Amendment is far from the settled issue you assume and/or try to imply it is. If you really knew anything about the First Amendment, except the bare fact that it exists (duh), you'd realize that it is a much more complex issue. And, of course, the issue has nothing to do with what you or I find offensive. Talk about a straw man!



"No one has killed themself because of A1, and A1 is not responsible for any particular opinion. Selectively nullifying it in someone else's case allows them to selectively nullify it for you."



Um, what? I'm not like Adlai Stevenson. I'm willing to wait for the translation.




"I can't believe I have to explain this. Did you ever have a civics class?"




You actually think that you "explained" anything?

As far as my being cognizant of the First Amendment, my very first post on this said that I had mixed feeelings about restricting hate speech, but I had no doubt that it caused harm. What do you think caused my mixed feelings about restricting hate speech, if not the First Amendment? Besides, you had already posted on that to someone else. However, again, the discussion between you and me as not about alleged rights to hate speech, but about whether hate speech causes any harm.

A civics class? Taught by whom? A high school teacher who probably majored in history and never took a law course taught by a law prof in his or her life? I've posted with a couple of those and they had a lot of wrong notions about the Constitution. Worse, they were very sure they did know it all and therefore did not even know enough to do any research. Pitiful.

Finally, anyone who cannot understand, without explanation, that homophobic hate speech harms people in general and gays in particular, or that spewing homophobic hate speech at middle schools and funerals also causes harm is in no position to be arrogant about what explanations anyone else may or may not need. So, take it elsewhere.

[wtmusic]

32. "Mixed feelings about restricting hate speech" means

you would consider removing someone's right to it, doesn't it? You can't have it both ways. That was our initial discussion, so who's moving goalposts now?

It may be that homophobic hate speech is offensive and in that context "harms" gays, but there is nothing legally we can do about it. The approach has to be through activism and support of gay marriage and gay rights - not removing the rights of others.

[No Elephants]

33. "Mixed feelings about restricting hate speech" means

you would consider removing someone's right to it, doesn't it?"

No, but you are taking my statement totally out of context. Your penultimate post to me claimed I was unaware of the First Amendment and therefore needed you to inform me of its existence. I pointed to my remark about mixed feeling to illustrate that I indeed knew of the existence of the First Amendment without your instruction. If I were not a defender of the first amendment, there would be zero reason for mixed feelings about hate speech. I have no innate love of hate speech that would result in mixed feelings.

"It may be that homophobic hate speech is offensive and in that context "harms" gays, but there is nothing legally we can do about it. The approach has to be through activism and support of gay marriage and gay rights - not removing the rights of others.


Again, you are assuming the conclusion in a complex and unsettled area. Legal scholars have made arguments and analysis of prior cases on both sides of the issue, but the SCOTUS has not yet addressed this issue. When the SCOTUS decides a case challenging a restriction on hate speech, we'll all know what the law of the land on that particular point is.

Until then, your belief that hate speech is 100% protected by the First Amendment is your assumption and your opinion, nothing more and nothing less. It is not so simply bc you claim it to be so.

[wtmusic]

34. Hate speech is, in fact, protected by the First Amendment.

This is not a matter of my opinion. It has been reaffirmed in many cases:

"American Booksellers involved a First Amendment challenge to an Indianapolis civil rights ordinance that made it a crime to distribute materials that depicted women as "sexual objects for domination, conquest, or use." The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated the ordinance calling it "thought control." The Court ruled that the First Amendment gives government no power to establish "approved views" of various subgroups of the population."

<>

R. A. V. considered a challenge to a St. Paul ordinance punishing the placement of certain symbols that were "likely to arouse anger, alarm, or resentment on the basis of race, religion, or gender." Robert Victoria, a teenager, had been convicted of violating the ordinance after having been found to have burned a cross on the yard of a black family. The Court, in an an opinion by Justice Scalia, reversed R. A. V.'s conviction on the ground that the ordinance unconstitutionally criminalized some hurtful expression (specifically that aimed at racial and religious minorites) and not other hurtful expression (that aimed at other unprotected groups) based on the political preferences of legislators. Scalia makes clear that "fighting words" is not, as Chaplinsky had suggested, a category of speech that is wholly outside of First Amendment protection."

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/hatespeech.htm

Unless you're prepared to argue that gays deserve protection from hate speech and African-Americans don't, the issue is settled.

[No Elephants]

35. No, the issue is not settled. You have not looked at the cases cited in that article very

carefully. In fact, you have not read the article very carefully.

Candidly, I really don't have an interest in discussing the First Amendment with people who are not lawyeers.

[wtmusic]

36. Ok, you run along and talk to some lawyers.

When you get all lawyered up please come back and straighten me out. You seem to think that merely claiming I didn't read my sources constitutes a rebuttal.

Whatever. :eyes:

[No Elephants]

38. Telling you you did not read your source carefully was simply a statement of fact. That was

obvious from your post. It was not a rebuttal. I did not attempt a rebuttal for the reason I stated, namely, I have no interest in discussing the First Amendment with anyone but lawyers. That's why I tried to confine my participation in this to your statement about absence of harm.

Lawyers have studiedy how judges decide cases for a minimum of three years and Constitutional Law in particular for a minimum of one year. And that's before they set foot out of law school. Most others think they know everything about Constitutional just because they've heard of the Consttution. It doesn't work that way.

[pampango]

39. "Candidly, I really don't have an interest in discussing the First Amendment with people who are not

lawyers."

I trust you didn't mean that as it sounded. We don't restrict our discussions of the economy to economists, of Iraq and Afghanistan to military specialists, etc.

You have the right to not discuss anything with anyone you don't wish to discuss it with (part of the First Amendment, no?). DU could grind to a halt if we have to prove our credentials before our opinions are considered as worth discussing.

[No Elephants]

45. I meant what i said, but i spoke only for myself. Not sure where you

think we disagree?

[ronnie624]

52. Ugh!

:puke:

[LeftishBrit]

53. Two points

Firstly, this is in the UK. The US constitution does not apply to us. Not that we don't value free speech; but we don't have a 'first amendment' as such.

Secondly, 'free speech' laws generally only apply to citizens of a country, not to would-be tourists and visitors. As long as there are borders, countries have a right to exclude anyone whom they choose from visiting.

[iamthebandfanman]

48. nah , the best way to combat these idiots

is to show up wherever they are and block them and their signs from view with others signs and other people. just make their efforts pointless and useless. they actually give up pretty easily from what ive seen.

[totodeinhere]

55. How can we ban someone who already lives here?

I don't understand what you are getting at.

[Hawkeye-X]

4. Fred is a British subject?

Well, his church out to be removed for being an illegal!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

5. no he isn't, I think the article title is a typo n/t

[anakie]

8. definately a typo

Went back to check the article and they did get it wrong. Funny that it took that long to notice, I didn't.


Peace

[Anarcho-Socialist]

6. Hmmm....

"Reporting the British ban on its website, the US church added: "God Hates the UK - Land of the Sodomite Damned".

:rofl:

That's a catchy title. Maybe we should use it for tourism purposes.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

37. It'd make a good movie title...

for a documentary focusing on successful British social programs. ;-)

[Anarcho-Socialist]

41. I'd go for that

I'd like to see it on Pound Sterling notes and coins. I propose it as a national motto.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland- "Land of the Sodomite Damned"

[GoddessOfGuinness]

44. LOL! We should change ours to

"In God We Rust"

[bluestateguy]

7. They should be banned from this country

They abuse the freedom of speech.

[wtmusic]

12. Cool...who gets to decide what's abusive? nt

[bluestateguy]

13. Me.

That's who.

[wtmusic]

15. Welcome to DU, W!

:spray:

[annarbor]

16. I've seen them in action Bluestateguy

And I'm in complete agreement with you on this one!

[wtmusic]

22. You'd appoint BSG as Royal Arbiter of What's Offensive?

:rofl:

This is fun.

[pampango]

26. Does this mean that we can choose someone whom BSG does not get to listen

to, because we have deemed this person offensive.

That's an interesting idea. Royal Arbiter of What's Offensive for a day! We all get to choose one person that we can prevent other people from listening to. ;)

[Critters2]

42. I've seen 'em in action, too. I just walked by on the other side of the street.

No harm done.

The 1st Amendment is for everyone.

[TankLV]

9. What we've got to do is convice any countries to WAIT to ban their visit UNTIL THEY LEAVE THE USA...

then, the US AND the country they were traveling to can ban them SIMULTANEOUSLY, then they'd have to spend the rest of their lives on a fucking boat in the middle of some ocean somewhere and WE CAN BE RID IF THEM!!!

pass it along...

[47of74]

10. To Her Majesty's Government

To Her Majesty's Government I offer my own personal thumbs up for taking a stand against hatred;

[RyanClark]

11. UK bans UK anti-gay pastor Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church

As someone who has had the 'privilege' to see this group in action live (I don't live terribly far from Topeka), I can say Britain's interior ministry has done their people a great favor in keeping these insane people out of their country.

[pampango]

17. The UK banned a Dutch anti-Muslim legislator a couple of weeks ago, too.

These two would be pretty high on my list of people whom I would not want to hear from. I do not know much of the UK's history of banning foreigners with unpopular views, but the idea of the government deciding whom I can listen to and whom I can't is a little creepy.

[Prophet 451]

19. It's not unpopular views

It's views that are likely to inspire violence that are disallowed. Rev Wright would be perfectly acceptable, David Duke would not.

[wtmusic]

21. Reverend King's views could easily be considered in that light.

You are on a slippery slope, my friend.

[Prophet 451]

49. We don't seem to be sliding on it though

This has been exactly the same for years.

[pampango]

25. That's a tough call.

Someone can rile people up by pointing out perceived or real injustices that target specific ethnic, racial, or religious groups. Would that person have to specifically advocate violence to be barred from the country? Or would the prospect that some wacko would take the message and become violent or that the reaction against the message might become violent be enough to keep the speaker out?

AFAIK, there is not public input in the UK on the decision on whom to admit and whom to bar. Absent that I'm not sure I want my government deciding what is in my best interest as far as what I can listen to and what is inappropriate.

[Prophet 451]

50. Yeah, it is

Based on the court decisions that have already been held (note: Phelps can challenge the decision in court if he chooses), it amounts to the "reasonable man" test i.e. would the archetypal (and theoretical) "reasonable man" conclude that the speaker was encouraging violence?

Public input: Depends what you mean. There's isn't an official public forum. However, anyone can write to the MP, many do (I correspond with our MP on occasion) and any decision maker would be very foolish to ignore those opinions.

As for the state deciding who can and cannot speak: The state has always done this, even yours. Remember, Phelps is not a British citizen and therefore, the protections of the British Constitution (yes, we do have one) do not apply to him. Between entry/exit visas, D-notices (or "national security" in your own country) and the old boy network, states have always made decisions about which foreign nationals can and cannot speak.

[Critters2]

43. There are those who would accuse Rev. Wright of hate speech.

But you'd allow him. See, that's why we all have the 1st Amendment.

[Prophet 451]

51. Little smug there

First off, we have the right to free speech too, subject to a few limits (of the "shouting fire in a theatre" variety) but Phelps is not a British citizen and therefore, the British Constitution doesn't apply to him (yes, we do have a constitution and unlike your own, ours explicitely says "citizens"). Contrary to popular belief, we are not yet the 51st state.

Secondly, states have always excercised control over whether foreign nationals can speak.

Thirdly, PATRIOT Act.

[wtmusic]

30. The US didn't provide a visa for Cat Stevens for reasons of "national security"

which of course was a sham. He was a popular singer who had converted to Islam and the US government didn't want his opinion.

Many ways to skin a Cat.

[Dorian Gray]

27. I wish he was banned in the USA too

He's a hateful man.

[Taverner]

40. One of these days Phelps will be caught at a rest stop, in a daisy chain

Mark my words!

[and-justice-for-all]

47. The world is not interested in hearing their hate parada propaganda

Are these clowns now on a "We hate the world" tour?!

fuckin idiots.

[ProgressIn2008]

54. Every time I think Phelps has hit rock bottom, he and his friends find a new low. Ugh. nt