Westboro Baptist Church Says it Plans to Picket Norway Funerals

Apparently no longer content to picket the funerals of gays and lesbians and fallen U.S. soldiers, the Westboro Baptist Church says its planning a field trip – to Norway.

The group posted a press release on their oh-so-subtly named website last week (which is just beginning to make the rounds online now) announcing their plans to protest at the funerals of the victims of last month’s domestic terror attacks that rocked the Scandinavian nation.

The Topeka-based church claims homosexuality is a sin and views pretty much anything bad that happens to Americans as a proof that God is angry with the U.S. The fringe group appears to apply that logic to both sides of the Atlantic. The release claims that “God formed [Andres Breivik] and appointed him to punish Norway.”

In particular, the church takes issue with Norwegian laws that allow gays to wed and to adopt children. “Did you think God would wink at that in-your-face sin forever?” the group writes. “No! He sent the killer to slaughter 75+ of your children and citizens.”

The group is known for picketing high-profile funerals in a bid to gain press coverage, but also has a history of failing to follow through on its promises. A church spokesman confirmed to Norwegian broadcaster NRK that the group plans to picket the funerals in Norway, but he said that church leaders were "not completely sure when yet."

The group formally won the right to picket funerals in the U.S. when the Supreme Court ruled in March that doing so was protected by the First Amendment. But that doesn’t mean those rights extend to Norway, where the nation has laws banning hate speech, as The Atlantic Wire notes.

A Norwegian police official called the group’s plans “one of the worst ideas in the world at the moment.” Oslo Police chief of staff Johan Fredriksen told Norwegian broadcaster NRK: “Normal thinking people do not think in such a way. ... These statements confirm that humans are the world’s most complicated construction, this is beyond any common sense and we have problems with relating to it.”