The statement comes across a fax machine with all the impact of a kick in the gut: "Thank God for the Utah Mine Disaster."

Members of a Kansas-based church notorious for picketing military funerals to generate publicity for their anti-gay cause have announced plans to picket any memorial services for the six miners trapped inside the Crandall Canyon Mine.

That's assuming they are dead, the Westboro Baptist Church concedes.

A statement by the group pledges to picket in central Utah with a warning: "God Hates Fags!"

"God hates Utah and America for surrendering to the fag agenda, and because of which God is now punishing this evil, sodomite nation with disaster after disaster, including 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, West Virginia Mine Disaster, Virginia Tech Massacre, The Shuttle Disaster, etc., — and now: The Utah Mine Disaster," the Westboro Baptist Church said in a fax to the Deseret Morning News on Saturday night.

The group has protested in Utah before. In June, three protesters showed up to the funeral services of Sgt. Jesse Blamires, a South Jordan man killed while serving in Iraq. They stayed a few blocks away, holding signs with messages such as "Pray for more dead soldiers."

The church claims the deaths have been God's punishment for America tolerating homosexuals.

It's the Westboro Baptist Church's penchant for distasteful demonstrations that has prompted lawmakers in several states, including Utah, to push through legislation forcing protesters at funerals to keep their distance from mourners.

It was originally designed to keep picketers from soldiers' funeral services. The sponsor of Utah's law was shocked to hear it being proposed for the mine tragedy. The group has also recently pledged to picket memorial services for victims of the Minneapolis bridge collapse.

"I thought I'd seen it all," said Rep. Ron Bigelow, R-West Jordan. "Being in politics, you see people use tragedies for their own personal political benefit. It is sad that they do so."

Utah law makes it a class B misdemeanor to demonstrate in a noisy and disruptive manner within 200 feet of a funeral or memorial service within an hour before and after the service.

Emery County Sheriff Lamar Guymon said if the group comes to Huntington, he'll enforce that law to the letter.

"It's absolutely in poor taste," he told the Deseret Morning News. "Number one, we don't have any dead miners at this point."

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E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com