[Shaun]

I'm sure a topic on the Westboro Baptist Church has been posted before, as they've gained quite a lot of notoriety and infamy. They're basically a religious group (of which the Phelps family are the focal point) in Kansas, USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

There was a documentary recently done with Louis Theroux, as well as other media appearances on the Jeremy Kyle Show, countless CNN interviews and

Phelps Sr., his supporters and members of his church attend the aforementioned gatherings, as well as other gay-related events, with signs bearing anti-gay slogans. Phelps Sr. has characterized the AIDS Memorial Quilt as "100,000 living fags slobberin' around 45,000 dead fags" and declared Elizabeth Taylor, a fundraiser for AIDS research, to be a "world-famous filthy Jew *****." Other regular anti-gay slogans of Westboro include "Homosexuality = Death," "Fags Die, God Laughs," "Matthew Shepard Rots in Hell," "AIDS: Kills Fags Dead" and "Ellen DeGeneres is a Lesbian Slut."

In July 2005 the Westboro Baptist Church declared its intention to picket the memorial service of Cpl. Carrie French in Boise, Idaho. French, aged 19 years old, was killed on June 5 in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where she served as an ammunition specialist with the 116th Brigade Combat Team's 145th Support Battalion. Her death is seen by the church as divine punishment of the United States. Phelps Sr. was quoted as saying, "Our attitude toward what's happening with the war is [that] the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime."

The Westboro Baptist Church declared its intention to picket the funerals of other soldiers as well, and did so in August 2005. A group from the church protested at the funeral of Spc. Edward Myers, a soldier from St. Joseph, Missouri, who died in Iraq. Shirley Phelps-Roper (one of Phelps Sr.'s daughters and the main author of the WBC Epics and Hate Letters) told a television reporter, "Who would serve a nation that is Godless and has flipped off, defiantly defied, defiantly flipped off, the Lord their God?" She then reiterated her belief that Myers was burning in Hell.

According to the same wikipedia page, they are (thankfully) banned from entering the UK after intending to picket the production of "The Laramie Project", a play about the homophobic killing of Matthew Shepard.

Now, onto how this gets into a debate - should freedom of speech be allowed in this case?

[edit - changed the title of the thread because it'll get more attention :P]