BOSTON--Chinese President Jiang Zemin was not the only public figure facing protests this weekend.

Vice President Al Gore '69 had his share to deal with as well.

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., sent a dozen protesters--half of them children--to the Boston area to demonstrate their opposition to homosexuality.

Led by Rev. Fred Phelps, the protesters gathered on Memorial Drive on Friday and greeted Gore's motorcade with brightly colored signs reading, "Thank God for AIDS" and "Fag Lover Gore, 666."

The church's 213 members take turns traveling "almost every weekend" to spread their message, Phelps said in an interview. The church also pickets the funerals of homosexuals who die of AIDS.

Phelps estimated that the group spends $250,000 on travel expenses each year.

"Anytime anybody nowadays in this atmosphere and climate asks a question about the propriety of this filthy thing called homosexuality, they're demonized and called a hate monger," Phelps said in an interview from Topeka last month.

"Anybody who thinks that God loves everyone is a nincompoop," he said. "AIDS is a direct judgment from God almighty on these animals."

The church members had planned their trip to Boston to include picketing at an event where television actor Ellen DeGeneres's mother was speaking and a trip to Provincetown, Mass. When they learned of Gore's visit, they added it to the agenda.

"I was a delegate for him at the '88 convention in Atlanta," said Phelps's son, Fred Phelps Jr. "I traveled all over Kansas with him and his dad. He and Tipper used to represent pro-family values."

But now, Reverend Phelps said, Gore has "taken up with the anti-Christ Clinton." Phelps said Gore has recently endorsed DeGeneres, the star of the television show "Ellen" who announced her homosexuality this year.

"So we said well, now we have to preach to get [him] back to the Lord," Phelps said.

Some students and area residents met the protesters with hostility.

"It has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with hate," said Jeremy Dilbeck, a student at the Kennedy School of Government, who argued with the protesters gathered on Memorial Drive.

Pedestrians and bicyclists yelled at the group and a man leaned from a passing bus, shouting an expletive.