Protest Group Absent From MN Marine's Funeral

(AP) Welcome, Minn. No one picketed the funeral for Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Posivio III on Saturday, but 400 leather-clad bikers holding American flags showed up just in case.

A church group known for protesting military funerals with signs like "Thank God for dead soldiers" was expected to picket on Saturday but didn't. Westboro Baptist Church claims God is punishing America for accepting homosexuality. Their arrival would have tested a new Minnesota law that pushes funeral protests 500 feet away from the service.

Martin County Sheriff Brad Gerhardt set up wooden barricades to corral picketers about a block and a half away from the funeral at St. Paul United Church of Christ. It wouldn't have been hard for mourners arriving at the church to miss seeing picketers.

The sheriff also stationed some members of a SWAT-like unit of specially-trained officers next to the spot reserved for the picketers, and called out more than 50 law officers from his department and neighboring police departments.

But instead of pickets, Posivio's family saw flags, tattoos, and leather. The bikers were allowed on the street outside the church because the family wanted them there, Gerhardt said.

One of those lining the street outside the church was an Iowan who calls himself "Scary jerry." Jerry Myers' shaved head gave way to fat silver hoop earrings in each ear, a nose ring, and a long beard. At 3 a.m. he had finished transporting residents of a halfway house home from their factory night shift, and at 4 a.m. he was on the road from Garner, Iowa.

"If I tear up, I'm sorry," he said, and he did, a little. "This is the absolute least I can do."

Myers, whose nephew is on his second tour in Iraq as an Army engineer, said it didn't matter that the church group protest didn't materialize.

"I just love that the people over here are pulling for the people over there," he said.

Posivio, 22, was from the Sherburn area. He died May 23 in Iraq when a roadside bomb hit the Humvee in which he was riding. He was on his third tour in Iraq.

His family asked reporters to stay outside of the funeral.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty attended. After stepping out of his car he turned to the bikers outside the church and said, "Thank you for being here, you guys. Thank you."

The bikers were organized by the Patriot Guard Riders, a group that has made a point of attending funerals to counter protests by Westboro Baptist Church. The Topeka, Kan. church's 75 members are nearly all relatives of pastor Fred Phelps.

His daughter, Margie Phelps, is the church's attorney. She said the group decided to picket in Plymouth, N.H. instead because they got all the publicity they needed in Minnesota in advance of Posivio's funeral.

Thirty-eight people with Minnesota ties have died in connection with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.