What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Westboro Baptist Church To Take ‘God Hates Islam’ Signs To Iraq
The Westboro Baptist church, the extreme anti-gay group that has garnered national attention for years by picketing funerals — including the funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in action — with their placards bearing messages of hatred against gay people, now say that the group’s members will travel to war-torn Iraq to protest the Muslim religion.
The group is known for its repellent, signature slogan, “God Hates Fags.” In fact, the Westboro Baptist Church is so closely identified with that phrase, using the anti-gay epithet, that the URL of their own home page is godhatesfags.com.
But for their trip to Iraq, if indeed they follow through on their pledge, they will modify the slogan, as in the above photo, to read, “God Hates Islam,” along with other placards bearing such expressions of disdain for the world’s largest religion as “Muslims Die God Laughs” and “Muhammad = Lying False Prophet.”
How such slogans will be received in Iraq, where large swaths of territory are now occupied by Islamic State extremists who have executed and brutalized Christians for refusing to convert to Islam, remains to be seen.
The Westboro Baptist Church offered to take its show on the road to the violent and strife-torn Middle Eastern country in response to a challenge from Australian-born British TV comedian Adam Hills, who was incensed by the group’s pledge to protest the funeral of beloved comedian Robin Williams, who tragically committed suicide on August 11.
The self-styled anti-gay church said that the Robin Williams’ support of same sex marriage prompted their promised picket.
“If you really believe in standing up to those threatening the Christian way of life, Westboro Baptist Church, how about putting your money where your mouth is, taking a direct flight to Iraq and picketing the people threatening to behead Christians if they don’t convert?” Hills said.
The comedian offered to personally pay for the group members’ airline tickets to Iraq, in order for them to stage their protest against the Muslim religion.
Disregarding the ISIS extremist militants, the ordinary citizens of Iraq are overwhelmingly Muslim, though divided between the Sunni and Shi’a sects of the religion. By one estimate, 97 percent of Iraq’s 21.4 million citizens are Muslim.
But via its Twitter account, the Westboro Baptist Church quickly accepted the challenge issued by the British comic.
We accepted! Whence tickets? @PhilCooke: An offer to fly WBC members 2 Iraq 2 protest. Sounds like good idea to me: http://t.co/97BEusEBxH
— Westboro Baptist (@WBCSays) August 21, 2014
In fact, the church rather inscrutably claimed to have visited Iraq before, and challenged the comedian to “Google it” if he didn’t believe them.
Ironically, @adamhillscomedy, we have picketed in Iraq before. Google it. #toldya cc: @TheLastLeg @kiis1065 pic.twitter.com/iKaL2mTMZu
— Westboro Baptist (@WBCSays) August 21, 2014
When The Inquistr ran a Google search for “Westboro Baptist Church in Iraq,” however, it turned up no clearly evident mentions of an earlier visit there by the anti-gay, anti-Muslim group.
