The Westboro Baptist Church, home of the anti-gay extremists behind the “Gods Hate Fags” and “God hates…” everything else, say they will picket an upcoming concert of fag-enabling” boy band, One Direction.
The group announced it will picket at the July 19 concert in Kansas City, reported Buzfeed.
Members of One Direction, from left, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson.
In a statement posted to its website, Westboro said:
“WBC will picket this perverted pop boy band from the UK who claim to be the world’s #1 band. Indeed, they are a perfect representation of this filthy world and the sin-chasing, fag-enabling, God-hating, Christ-rejecting UK who has banned WBC from preaching within her borders. These freaks and their fans think it’s funny for these five perverts to grab each other’s asses on stage. They glamorize sin and make a mock of God’s standards. Their one purpose is to encourage the youth of this generation to pursue every lust their evil hearts can imagine”
Based in Topeka, Kan., the Westboro church 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 founder Fred Phelps either by blood or marriage.
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The hate group is best known for its protest of the funerals of U.S. service members, and first came into the national spotlight in 1998, when it picketed at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay man who was brutally attacked on the night of October 6, 1998, then tied to a fence and left to die.
Members of the church were banned from entering the United Kingdom in 2009 because of their practices of picketing the funerals of the military, terrorist attacks and victims of natural disasters.
