'Hate group' church to picket Ledger memorial

Posted Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:25am AEDT
Updated Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:29am AEDT

 
Heath Ledger in the award-winning film Brokeback Mountain.
(Supplied)



An evangelical anti-gay US church plans to picket any memorials to Australian actor Heath Ledger, who died this week, because of his portrayal of a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.

It is understood a service will be held in LA this coming weekend, before the Perth-born actor is laid to rest in Australia.

Ledger, 28, was found dead in his New York apartment on Wednesday morning. Prescription medications were found in the residence, but an initial autopsy proved inconclusive.

The actor's family insist his death was "accidental."

Shirley Phelps, of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, has told Sydney radio station 2Day FM that they will also picket any attempt to honour Ledger, 28, at next month's Academy Awards ceremony.

"I'm going to stand outside of any public memorial service that he has here," Ms Phelps said.

"And then the other place I'm going to picket him is when they prop him up to worship his dead, rotting carcass further at the Oscars. I'll be right outside by the red carpet."

Ledger won widespread acclaim for his sensitive portrayal of a repressed homosexual cowboy role in the Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain.

He had also starred in The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Two Hands and Ned Kelly.

The Westboro Baptist Church is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre in the United States.

It regularly pickets the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, claiming the war is God's punishment for tolerating gays.

- AFP


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