US church says will picket Heath Ledger memorial

SYDNEY: An evangelical 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 the hit 'Brokeback Mountain', one of its leaders said on Thursday.
       
Shirley Phelps, of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, told the Sydney radio station 2Day FM that they would also picket any attempt to honour Ledger, 28, at next month's Academy Awards ceremony.
       
Ledger was found dead in his New York apartment on Tuesday. Police have said prescription medications were found in the residence.
       
"I'm going to stand outside of any public memorial service that he has here," Phelps told 2Day FM, referring to the United States.
       
"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 'Brokeback Mountain'. He had also starred in 'The Patriot' and 'A Knight's Tale'.
       
The Australian actor's family insisted his death was 'accidental', while initial findings of an autopsy were inconclusive.
       
The Westboro Baptist Church is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in the United States. It regularly pickets the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, claiming the war is God's punishment for tolerating gays.