What is your take on this? (19)

NDP MP Pat Martin said his office was flooded with phone calls Thursday from Winnipeggers offended by the group’s plan.

“These people (the WBC) are almost as crazy as the murderer,” he said, referring to the protesters’ intentions.

“If they are here to disrupt the social order, that constitutes grounds to deny them entry. There is no redeeming virtue in the message they are bringing.”

Martin said Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day’s office sent an alert to border patrol to “look out” for people with signs and pamphlets that fit the hateful messages that the church promotes and to keep them out of the country.


“In the opinion of his office, coming up here with the message they’re articulating constitutes hate speech,” Martin said.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of church’s founder, Fred Phelps, said a small group of protesters was stopped at the Canada-U.S. border Thursday afternoon.

“They won’t let us in, but we have a group that will cross in another spot,” she said. “They’ll have to strip search everyone who crosses that border or they won’t know who we are. They’ll have to see the WBC (Westboro Baptist Church) tattoo on our butts.”

The Westboro group has been branded as a hate group and is known for protesting the funerals of American soldiers.

The group failed to show Thursday night for a scheduled protest of the opening night of Toronto playwright Alistair Newton’s “The Pastor Phelps Project: a fundamentalist cabaret” which satirizes their leader’s fervent anti-gay stance.

Members had also planned to picket on Friday night outside a performance in Red Deer, Alta., of “The Laramie Project,” a play based on the murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man in Wyoming. Winnipeg police say they aren’t planning to block Westboro Church protesters if they get across the border, but are prepared to be on hand if necessary.

I must be a nut case..... First thought as I woke up..... Crap (used S word to be honest)... it's too damned hot!!!

Second thought... hope that church group does not show up at Tim's funeral or near his family and friends. Don't even know this young man or his family, but for some odd reason, I keep repeating in my head... Hope that group stays away... over and over.

Oh well.... dog is in bad need of a hair cut. Rest of the day will be spent cleaning up the hair.

Can't add a thing to what has been said here.
I am a Christian but could not imagen wanting to use the horrendous happening of this poor man who was murdered to use at a platform for hatred.
Trust me these people may be church goers, but for sure NOT Christians.
God teaches us to love.

Dear PETA,

I read with some surprise your reassurance that "PETA's ad comparing Tim McLean Jr.'s murder with the fate of animals who are killed for their flesh is certainly not meant to upset anyone."

Surely, the purpose of comparing a man who was brutally beheaded to the plight of farm animals is to shock people. People who are shocked are invariably upset as well. So your position seems dishonest at best, and cold-hearted and cynical. I'd suggest that, regardless of what you think of barbaric meat-eaters, you had to know his family would be rather upset by any billboards comparing their son to a dead cow.

Most of us eat meat. We do it because our bodies are designed to do it; just like those creatures you 'protect', human beings are part of the animal food chain. And while you may see that chain as barbaric, I haven't seen any PETA officials traipsing into the forest to dress down a bear for eating meat. I'd like to, but I haven't.

Human societies dictate the course of justice in large part on what is "natural" behaviour. It does not suggest that, simply because we have a greater exercise of free will, we should stop being true to that nature. Rather, we have adapted societies to accept -- albeit with occasional revulsion -- many natural things we do.

When it come to meat, that may sound nasty and cold-blooded to a vegan. But it is human reality; we are the master of our domain precisely because we have the ability to shepherd it. We are not driven to kill animals by a frenzied urge to obtain protein. That implies a lack of conscious choice. We do it because we feel it is normal -- a rationalized choice, but a choice.

The beheading of Mr. McLean, on the other hand, was an act that no human could see as anything other than sheer lunacy. No one makes a rational choice to behead a fellow human. So there is absolutely no "apt" parallel, as you so callously stated in your letter.

The family of the steak I ate last night may, you are right, have been traumatized by his sudden disappearance ... for the four seconds it took to flit through their underdeveloped brains. But they do not sit up at night, waiting in vain. They do not look back at years of fond memories and emotional bonds and wonder what might have been. They not grieve for years.

So it is not even slightly "apt" to compare Tim McLean Jr. to a dead cow. As such, the emotional damage you unleashed on parents to whom "your hearts go out" demonstrates the essence of inhumanity: the ability to disconnect yourself emotionally from society.

PETA hates cruelty, and yet when it feels the need, it can justify behaving in a cruel way. What a strange and savage hypocrisy.

PETA wanted to place those ads in the papers. Papers refused. I blame PETA for taking a tragic incident and trying to use and compare it to what happens to animals.

The media did not approach PETA ... I don't understand the comment "don't blame PETA, blame the media." I blame PETA for acting and thinking that they could compare the young man's death to slaughter of animals, and then saying it would not happen, because animals do not have that kind of rage... I beg to differ. Animals lash out if stressed, attacked, etc. Animals also have emotional problems, chemical imbalances, and mental problems.

I just felt that PETA were insensitive to what happened to the young man.

I agree K

I believe PETA has overstepped it's mark several times lately.

As a vegan of 26 years...I agree with the thought that eating or wearing an animal is the same as eating a human...disgusting! It's just that meat eaters don't see it that way.

Oh well...the world is at war in thought and deed.