ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI - Homosexual rights supporters plan to rally outside the Southern Baptist Convention, which opens Tuesday at the Edward Jones Dome. <br>
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Several thousand representatives of the Southern Baptists, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, are meeting in Saint Louis Tuesday and Wednesday. The voluntary association represents 42,300 churches with 16 million members nationwide. <br>
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Up to 150 protesters are planning an act of nonviolent civil disobedience over concerns about comments and policies they say promote hatred and violence against homosexuals. <br>
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Soulforce -- the Laguna Beach-California based gay rights groups -- also protested at Southern Baptist Conventions in 2000 and 2001. <br>
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At the root of this year's protest is a legal opinion written by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, a Southern Baptist. <br>
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In February, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that awarded custody of three children to their lesbian mother rather than to their heterosexual father. As part of the ruling, Moore wrote that homosexuality makes a person unfit to be a parent.
