And guess who’s tagging along like a bad smell?

A small religious community from Kansas notorious for picketing funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq have said they are to protest in England.

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.

Unfortunately Basingstoke is a little out of my range, but if I can be there you can be sure I’ll get some pics of the counter-protest. I’m confident there’ll be one, irrespective of whether or not the Phelpses actually bother to turn up this time. We may even follow the example of a couple of American LGBT groups and organise sponsorship according to how long the Westboro Wingnuts keep the picket up for. I do hope they manage to make it through Immigration (the Islamophobic Dutch MP Geert Wilders didn’t) as if they do this is soooo going to be fun!

On the “God Hates Fags” website, the Phelps Klan states that “God H8s Ur Queen!” I have to wonder which one they mean, since as anyone who has ever seen Soho or Canal Street on a Friday or Saturday night can tell you, we have thousands of queens!

Incidentally, I have a theory on how Westboro Baptist gets its funding. It seems to me that they unwittingly provide the Religious Reich with a valuable service – every time LGBTs complain of Religious Reich bigotry, all the Religious Reich has to do is point at Topeka, Kansas and say “what about them?”.