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Group pickets at churches in Baldwin
BAY MINETTE -- Along a quiet stretch of Baldwin County 138 in front of the Crossroads Church of God on Sunday, a group of anti-gay demonstrators from Topeka, Kan., concluded a weekend of confrontational picketing in Alabama.

The group of about a dozen -- including Kansans with the Westboro Baptist Church and a Loxley street preacher named Orlando Bethel -- stood across the street from the church where, in July, the funeral was held for Scotty Joe Weaver, a gay Baldwin County man who was murdered outside Bay Minette.

Members of the Kansas congregation travel the country in small groups putting on about three protests each weekend in various locations, said Margie Phelps, daughter of the church's founder and pastor, Fred Phelps Sr.

At the demonstrations they stood with signs that read slogans such as "God hates fags," "God hates America," some that link natural disasters and terrorist attacks to tolerance of homosexuals and others showing stick figures copulating.

Their favorite targets include AIDS victims' funerals, Catholic churches and even the Texas church that President Bush attends....

..."When they were forced with the decision about what to say about (Weaver's) life, they should have said unequivocally: Don't live that way, and if you live that way you'll die and end up in hell," Phelps said.

Weaver, 19, was beaten, stabbed and strangled by assailants, who then set his body on fire. Investigators have pointed to the man's sexual orientation as a motive and have charged three suspects with capital murder. His funeral was held at the Crossroads church eight days after his decomposing body was found in a wooded area in the Pine Grove community where he lived.

On Saturday evening, while protesting in Mobile outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception by shouting epithets at choirboys and churchgoers, Phelps said she didn't condone Weaver's killing but said homosexuality was a sin on par with murder. ...