AceShowbiz - Annette Bening has praised Golden Globes organizers for refusing to let anti-gay protesters spoil the ceremony, after a group demonstrated outside the venue on Sunday night, January 16. Members of the right-wing Westboro Baptist Church, known for taking an extreme stance against homosexuality, picketed the event at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles as part of an anti-gay protest.

Bosses at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), who organize the Golden Globes, made sure the demonstrators did not get near the star-studded show, and Bening, who stars as a lesbian mother in Globe-winning movie "The Kids Are All Right", admits she found the protests disturbing.

She tells the Hollywood Reporter, "That made me very sad. They may have had (The Kids Are All Right in mind). I think that gives us all the more reason to go to the Golden Globes, and for the HFPA to see beyond that, (not) caught up behind the narrow mindedness."