America's brashest gay protester has been banned from entering the United Kingdom, reports the BBC.

Fred Phelps, the spiritual leader of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, and his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, have been banned by the UK Border Agency under a law that bars entry of extremists into the island nation.

The congregation announced plans to picket a Queen Mary's College production of the Laramie Project, a play based on the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard. Shepard, a student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten, shackled to a post and left to die in a field by two men he had met in a gay bar. He was found comatose, but died five days later.

The murder sparked outrage in the gay and lesbian community and calls for federal hate crimes legislation. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act might become law this year, ten years after his death.

The church came to national attention when they started picketing the funeral processions of soldiers killed during the Iraq war. Phelps believes dead soldiers returning from Iraq are God's punishment for American support of gays and lesbians.

The group also protested the first gay marriages held in California in early June of 2008.

A press release on the group's website announcing the protest called the play “cheap fag propaganda masquerading as legitimate theater.”

“Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for ten years, with eternity left to go on his sentence – without appeal, parole, or time off for good behavior. All else about Matt is trivial and irrelevant. Deal with it, you stupid Brits. You'll join Matt Shepard soon. GOD HATES ENGLAND.”

Phelps-Roper called the British government “filthy,” and told the BBC that the government cannot “keep the word of God from coming into her borders.”

“Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behavior by inciting hatred against a number of communities,” a spokesman for the UK Border Agency said.

“The exclusions policy is targeted at all those who seek to stir up tension and provoke others to violence regardless of their origins and beliefs,” he added.

Despite having coined the phrase “God hates fags,” church officials say they do not blame gays. In a September 2008 email to On Top Magazine, Margie Phelps said the church is against all sin.

“You self-indulgent cry babies typically miss the point,” she wrote. “The prophets of Westboro Baptist Church don't 'blame gays' for the wrath of God pouring out on this nation. That's way too simplistic and narrow-sighted. The Lord our God has put this entire nation under siege because of all your proud sins – all of you – not just the fags.”

Phelps-Roper said she expected the February 20th protest to proceed as planned by other church members.