The Westboro Baptist bigots brought their special brand of hate to game three of the NBA Finals on Sunday to protest the league’s policy against gay slurs.
Members of the Topeka, Kan.-based church, demonstrated outside American Airlines Center in Dallas, displaying their familiar “God hates fags” posters, along with others that included NBA Commissioner David Stern’s photo.
The anti-gay extremists were protesting a new NBA policy that prohibits the use of hate speech, including gay slurs — Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and Chicago Bulls’ Joakim Noah were recently fined for using gay slurs.
“Now David Stern, the tyrant commissioner of the NBA is jamming a message down the throat of America that not only is it okay to be gay but you don’t even want to use the word gay in a negative connotation,” said Steve Drain with the church.
“God hates fags. God hates fag enablers. Therefore God hates David Stern and the NBA.”
The demonstrators didn’t get much support from the fans, who seem puzzled by Westboro’s lack of “constructive things to do,” and mostly pitied the children who appeared forced to participate in the spectacle.
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The Westboro church, led by founder Fred Phelps, is not affiliated with the Baptist denomination or any other Baptist church. According to news reports, almost all of its members — fewer than 100 — are related to Phelps by either by blood or marriage.