Westboro Baptist barred from Canada (again)

Cover of the play text

Because hate speech is illegal in Canada under section 319 of the Canadian Criminal Code, members of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church are barred from entering to protest a Nov. 28 Vancouver performance of the play The Laramie Project.

The play is about Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered near Larami in 1998.

The Kansas church protests most productions of the play with signs that say "God Hates Fags." Well-known for those strategies, its members were barred from entering Canada in August, when they had planned to protest at the funeral of Tim McLean, a man who was beheaded on a Greyhound bus in July.

Westboro is an unaffiliated Baptish Church whose principal focus is rabid intolerance for gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual individuals. Its Web site has the words, “God hates fags” on the top of its home page.

Westboro's demonstrations don't meet, the least of these standard set forth in Matthew 25:34-40. Canadian law notwithstanding, they deserve protest themselves.