Jul 11, 2011

Westboro church to picket Betty Ford funeral services

By Michael Winter, USA TODAY
Updated 51m ago

The fundamentalist and anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church has announced plans to picket funeral services in California and Michigan for former first lady Betty Ford, who died Friday at age 93.

The Grand Rapids Press reports that the small congregation, consisting mostly of family members of founder Fred Phelps, announced on its website that it will demonstrate because Ford divorced her first husband, then married the future president, Gerald Ford.

In Westboro's eyes, that makes Ford an adulterer who "loved to sit with tawdry reporters and blather about sex."

The group, based in Topeka, Kan., plans to picket Tuesday at services at Saint Margaret Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, Calif., and Thursday at Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids when her casket travels to the Gerald R. Ford Museum for burial.

The church has become notorious for picketing the funerals of military personnel, calling their deaths God's punishment for U.S. tolerance of homosexuals. The Supreme Court ruled that their demonstrations are protected by the First Amendment.

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