Members of the notoriously hateful Westboro Baptist Church were almost sent on a trip to Iraq after Australian comedian Adam Hills offered to fly them there, in response to their plans to picket Robin Williams’ funeral. However, Hills has instead opted to donate funds to a much worthier cause.
Last week, Hills delivered a scathing message to members of the controversial church, telling them to “put your money where your mouth is” and offered to fly them to Iraq so they could instead protest against the killing of Christians by Islamic State militants. “I would personally pay for every member of the Westboro Baptist Church to fly to Iraq right now,” he said. “I’ll even fly you first class and pay the carbon offset.”
This week on his show “The Last Leg”, Hills said, following his comments, he had been contacted by many people who promised to donate money towards buying the tickets. “We did seriously look into this and we took on board the advice of both the US and UK governments, neither of which were too happy about us sending professional shit-stirrers into a war zone,” Hills said.
The comedian said he has received multiple messages from Westboro members accepting his offer and upon realising their publicity-generating tactics, he has decided to “spread love instead of hate”, directing the funds to a children’s charity instead.
“That’s why I’m going to take all the money I was going to spend on your air tickets and I’m going to donate it directly to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the name of Robin Williams… Not only will it help a child, it will also piss off a bigot.”
