WARWICK –– The weapons included mayonnaise, ketchup and salsa –– but also pepper spray, a glass jar and fists.

A difference of opinion over gay marriage sparked the incident, and emotions escalated quickly. Punches were thrown.

A small group of men visiting Rhode Island this week urging people to support traditional marriage called the police.

Offended by the men’s message, four young women now face charges of assault or battery and disorderly conduct. The youngest, 17, also faces a more serious charge — felony assault with a dangerous substance.

On a hot, sticky Tuesday afternoon, on a grassy area just in front of the Rhode Island Mall, stood six men from a group headquartered in Spring Grove, Pa. They were dressed in suits, red sashes flung over their shoulders.

The Foundation for a Christian Civilization Inc. –– also known as The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property –– traveled to Rhode Island this week to share its views. The men picked the only New England state that does not allow gay marriage because they believe their view of marriage is threatened here.

Tuesday in Warwick, they held long metal poles that carried a large banner with their beliefs: “God’s Marriage = 1 man & 1 woman.” A sign read, “Honk for Traditional Marriage.”

Driving by, stuck at a red light on Route 113, two women saw the men. Once the light turned green and the driver accelerated, the passenger threw a bottle out the window.

“We’ll be back,” one yelled, according to the police report.

Ten to 15 minutes later, the women returned. Rex Teodosio, a group member, told the police the women “made a beeline to us, shouting at us with bottles in their hands.”

Group member Jose Ferraz Jr., 20, said in an interview Thursday he doesn’t even know what was thrown first, “just a bunch of trash” –– bottles, garbage and some kind of blue paint. Three of the men were sprayed with Mace or pepper spray, he said.

Three of the four women charged spoke yesterday with The Journal.

Amanda L. Zangrilli, 23, of West Warwick, said she and her girlfriend had seen the men in the same spot for a few days, and had “every intention” of bringing opposing signs of their own.

Then, Tuesday afternoon, Zangrilli said, she and her girlfriend, Kristen A. Scungio, 19, also of West Warwick, saw the men again. She says they were pointing at the women, in a way that told her they realized the two were gay. Her girlfriend threw the soda bottle out the window –– missing the man she threw it toward, just as she had intended.

“We heard him yell, ‘Ha ha, you missed,’ ” Zangrilli said.

The two drove to a friend’s house, gathered whatever they could get their hands on and returned with the friend.

Zangrilli and Scungio said the men yelled at them when they returned, calling them the Antichrist, homosexuals and sinners. The men shouted anti-gay slurs at them, the women said, and one pushed his camera into Scungio’s face; she “pushed it away on instinct.”

“And then the flagpole guy raised his pole to me, and I turned around and punched him because I wasn’t sure what he was going to do,” Scungio said. “I was wicked scared. It turned into, like, a riot.”

Another woman driving by, an acquaintance of the women, jumped into the fray.

The men dispute the women’s account and face no charges. Four are listed in the police report as victims: Ferraz; Teodosio, 38; Joseph Ferrara, 53; and Fernando Desantos, 47.

On Thursday, the police arrested Zangrilli; Scungio; Melissa Migliaccio, 22, of 506 Phenix Ave. in Cranston, the passerby; and a 17-year-old from Warwick.

“I feel immature,” Scungio said Thursday. “… We obviously shouldn’t have gone up to them at all, because none of this would have happened.”

Ferraz said none of the men called the women names.

“We don’t even know if they were homosexuals or lesbians or anything like that,” he said. “… We make it a point in our campaign to be civil to everybody. It defeats the purpose to curse people, to use physical aggression against anybody.”

kbramson@projo.com