Thaindian News

Toronto, Aug 8 (IANS) Calling the killing and later beheading of a young Canadian by a fellow bus passenger last week as “god’s gift”, an American church group says it will protest at the victim’s funeral to highlight his “filthy way of life”. Twenty-two-year-old Tim McLean of Winnipeg was stabbed to death and then beheaded and cut into pieces by 40-year-old Chinese immigrant Vincent Li who reportedly also ate parts of his body.

The Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka in the American state of Kansas, said Thursday its members will go to Winnipeg Saturday to protest against the victim’s “filthy way of life”.

The church has been reviled in the US for calling the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as “god’s wrath against Americans for turning their backs on him”.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the founder of the church, told a Canadian TV network that the Canadian deserved death by beheading as his life was “emblematic of Canada’s moral decay”.

In his beheading death, she said: “God handed us a gift.

“(His death was) supremely unemotional. You got God shaking in rage. There is no emotional component. He was a rebel against god. He was taught to be a rebel by his parents. He came from a rebel country. They brought this wrath upon his head. And it sucks to be him and it sucks to be them.

“You gotta connect the dots, people, from your idols to your filthy way of life. Here’s what I know. He is dead and God does not do that to people that serve in his truth.

“I haven’t met him personally, but he has nothing going on. (His life) was all about him. Blah, blah, blah. He was a rebel. I don’t need to know anything else. I don’t need to know the minutae. Everything you need to know is right there.”

Calling Canada a “fag” nation, Phelps-Roper said she rejoiced when Americans said they hated her family.

“I say, ‘cha ching’. That goes in our bank. God gives us tokens of his love.”