Kansas protestors appear in Indiana

Bedford -- College students from around the state met in Bedford to counter a protest by a group united behind a religious warning "God hates fags."\nAndrea Scamihorn, a Ball State University student, said she only slept one hour Saturday night to drive three hours to the southern Indiana town about a half-hour south of Bloomington, with 23 other students to counter-protest. \nBut the original protestors never showed up.\nThe college students were supposed to counter-protest a group from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., that believes soldiers dying in Iraq is God's punishment for the increased tolerance of homosexuality in America. The group from Kansas traveled around Indiana this weekend, stopping at a military funeral in Fort Wayne, the IU-Minnesota football game and three churches in Bedford.\nThey were supposed to go to a fourth church, where Scamihorn and others stood ready to counter their ideas, but they never showed up. \n"They were cowards," said Betsy Mills, also a BSU student.\nThe third church the protest group went to Sunday -- Dive Christian Church -- was the church of state Sen. Brent Steele, R-Bedford. Steele is planning to introduce legislation Jan. 1 that would increase disorderly conduct at a military funeral from a misdemeanor to a felony.\nHe proposed the legislation in response to a protest by the same group at an Aug. 28 funeral for U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jeremy Doyle, an Indianapolis native killed in Iraq. The protestors dragged the American flag on the ground and stomped on it.\nThe group has protested many military funerals around the country. They also protested the funeral of Col. William Wood, the highest-ranking officer killed in Iraq, in Hinesville, Ga., Friday.\nThe state senator for Hinesville, Eric Johnson, said they dragged the flag on the ground and stomped on it at Wood's funeral, too. But he said he is not considering introducing legislation similar to that being introduced in Indiana because he feels it violates freedom of speech. The new law Steele is planning to introduce "sounds unconstitutional," Johnson said.\n"Most Georgians would just assume open hunting season on them," he said, "but that wouldn't be legal either."\nThe counter-protestors said they didn't agree with Westboro Baptist's message, but they do think that Hoosiers should be allowed to protest at funerals.\n"Anybody should have the right to protest," said BSU student Wendy Russ, who was with the counter-protestors.\nBut even if they have the right to protest, they shouldn't have a message of hate that encourages violence, she said.\nThe message the church wants to send at their protests is that "people have allowed the fags to take over everything," said Paulette Phelps, a member of the church who protested at IU Saturday.\n"We tell them the truth. God hates people," she said.\nPhelps said doesn't care if protesting at military funerals is disrespectful to the families of the dead soldier.\n"We don't care. It's not about respect," she said. "(Members of the U.S. military) don't respect God."\nDuring the protest at the corner of Fee Lane and State Road 46, many people would yell things like "God hates you" and "Fuck you," but she would just smile and hold her "God hates fags" sign up higher.\n"The god he serves isn't the god I serve," said counter-protestor Eric Robertson, the only IU student at the Bedford protest.\nPeople weren't taking them seriously because they are a joke, Mills said. That is probably why they left.\nThe 24 Ball State students drove three hours from Muncie to protests, so they weren't going home without protesting something, even if the other protestors didn't show up.\n"There's got to be something to protest somewhere," Scamihorn said.\nSo they decided to drive to Bloomington and protest the National Guard recruiting center on Kirkwood Avenue. They were just going to flip their signs over and write on the other side. After that, they might have gone to Oliver Winery, she said.\n-- The Associated Press contributed to this story.