Westboro Baptist Church to Picket Funeral of Heath Ledger

Westboro Baptist Church, the highly controversial organization headed by the Reverend Fred Phelps out of Topeka, Kansas and is most famous for picketing the funerals of more than three hundred fallen United States soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan claiming God is punishing the United States for its people's increasing acceptance of homosexuality, have announced their intention in a press release made available as an Adobe PDF on their website to picket the funeral of the late actor Heath Ledger, whom passed away on Tuesday the 22nd of January, 2008. In the press release, the church cites the late star's role as Ennis Del Mar in the 2006 Academy Award winning film Brokeback Mountain, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. The church also quoted several sections of the Christian Bible (such as Leviticus 18:12 and Ephesians 5:6) as justifications for the group's actions.

The Westboro Baptist Church was found in 1955, incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 1967, and operates as an independent church not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations. The organization has claimed to have staged "over 22,000" protests across the nation and around the world. They are currently being actively monitored by the Anti-Defamation League and have been characterized by them as '"virulently homophobic" whose "anti-gay rhetoric is often a vehicle for WBC's anti-Semitism, hatred of other Christians, and even racism." The Southern Law Poverty Center classifies the group as an active hate group.

In 1998 the group protested the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was killed by two men for being homosexual. The WBC's protests of the slain student's funeral angered many though the group claimed the murder was unjust. Most recently on October 31st, 2007, a federal jury in the US District Court for the State of Maryland in Baltimore found the church and three members of its leadership invaded the privacy of fallen Marine's family and inflicted emotional distress on them. The jury awarded the family of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder $10.9 million in damages. Fred Phelps, who trained as a lawyer but was disbarred in 1979 by the Kansas Supreme Court for ethical reasons, promised to appeal the verdict in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Press Release for Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008, Westboro Baptist Church
Brokeback Mountain, Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB)
Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church:
In Their Own Words, Anti-Defamation League
2006 Hate Group Map of Kansas, Southern Law Poverty Center
Jon Hurdle, Kansas church liable in Marine funeral protest, Reuters