US church: Thatcher ‘in Hell’ for doing ‘more than anyone else in the UK for fags’
The US Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), synonymous with its “God hates fags” slogan, prior to her funeral, circulated a document claiming Margaret Thatcher was a “fag enabler”, and expressed a desire to picket her funeral, despite being banned from the UK.
The text, which claimed that “fags filled the staff”, of Lady Thatcher while she was Prime Minister, and demanded that the 2009 ban on Westboro members entering the UK, be lifted.
It was accompanied by a colourful image of the former Prime Minister, emblazoned with the words “Fag Enabler in Hell”, and another of two stick-men, one of them bending over, on top of a wedding cake covered with blood.
Addressing PinkNews.co.uk on Twitter, upon the death of Margaret Thatcher on 8 April, the church said: “Iron Lady, my foot! Margaret Thatcher was a Iron Hearted Fag Enabler Can we get an amen, @PinkNews?”
It also tweeted to say: “Great day ahead! To start: Margaret Thatcher is DEAD!”, and went on to claim that she, “Did more for fags in UK than ANY 1 person!”.
The WBC claims that “in the 1960’s, [sic] she voted to decriminalize sodomy”, and that “snowballed”, to current day, where it wrongly claims that the “tyrannical” UK has already passed equal marriage, which it refers to as “fag marriage”.
In 1967, she voted in favour of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, in England and Wales. While she was Prime Minister, it was made legal to be legal to be gay in Scotland in 1981 and in Northern Ireland in 1982.
It goes on to say that the former Prime Minister “should have voted to make sodomy punishable by the death penalty”.
In the document, the WBC said that members of the church had picketed Margaret Thatcher once before, when she visited Baker University in 1996.
“Westboro Baptist Church picketed the milk snatching Iron Lady in 1996 at Baker University in Baldwin, KS. She saw our signs and is therefore without excuse! She should have personally invited WBC to preach in UK – & lifted up a LOUD voice when we were banned from its borders.”
Despite acknowledging that Lady Thatcher’s Government passed the controversial Section 28, which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools, the WBC went on to call her a “hypocrite”.
“She put forth a conservative face as Prime Minister, but fags filled her staff. She supported Section 28 in 1988 (it forbad teaching ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’) – but was a wicked hypocrite! She married another woman’s husband. God hates adulterers.”
It is possible that the church meant “fags” as the colloquial term for cigarettes, and was referring to Lady Thatcher’s 1992 appointment by tobacco company Philip Morris, as a geopolitical consultant. However the word is not commonly used as such in the US, and so it appears unlikely that is the case.
Earlier this week, the adamantly homophobic church threatened to picket the funerals of those killed in Monday’s Boston Marathon bomb attack.
Three people died and at least 170 were injured after two explosions went off near the finishing line of the Boston Marathon.
The church previously blamed homosexuality for the Newtown massacre in Connecticut where 20 children and six adults were killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook elementary school in December.
