A Kansas-based church known for its high-profile protests of service members’ funerals is planning to show up at the memorial service for the late Elizabeth Edwards, the group said Thursday.
The Westboro Baptist Church’s website said the group will hold a protest on Saturday from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. at a memorial for the Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Senator and 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards. Edwards, a lawyer and health care advocate, died Tuesday after a six-year battle with breast cancer.
[TPM SLIDESHOW: Elizabeth Edwards 1949-2010]
“They coveted things that were not theirs  – and presumptuously thought they could control God,” the Westboro Baptists said in a news release. The church also said Edwards “meddled in matters of the womb,” an apparent reference to fertility treatments she reportedly received to conceive her two youngest children. The WBC also apparently took issue with Elizabeth Edwards’ books and her struggles with her own faith after the death of her 16-year-old son, Wade, and her own cancer diagnosis.
The fringe church is monitored by anti-hate groups like the Anti-Defamation league and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
(Ed. note: this story has been updated. H/T CNN)
