Maine church that opposed gay marriage vandalized with ***SWASTIKAS!!!***

Sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning, swastikas were painted on the front door of Stockton Springs Community Church and on both sides of two signs on the church lawn. A spokesman for the church said "I was shocked and horrified when I arrived at the church this morning and saw swastikas painted all over our property. Clearly, those who want to redefine marriage also want to redefine tolerance,” the release said. “Our congregation has taken a loving and respectful stand for traditional marriage in our community, but those who disagree want to silence and intimidate us. We can’t be apathetic, and can’t be bullied. I urge all Mainers to go to the polls today and Vote No on Question 1.” Who would do such a thing?

• Spray-painted swastikas are the preferred method of attack used by Hate Crime hoaxers.

• Tough shit churchies

• They did it themselves.

• R3 why would they do it themselves? Destroy their own property and have to pay to get things fixed up?

• I don't know if this was an inside job (r3, it could be, as the costs would be money spent on "political action") or activist vandalism by those condemning their homophobia. Either way, it's revolting. And if it's the latter, extremely counterproductive.

• I agree with R3...they did it themselves to discredit us.

• No doubt, r3. Don't play dumb, r4. They did it for the same reason that some loony McCain campaign worker in 2008 carved a backward B into her own face and claimed angry Obama supporters did it.

• Another vote for did it themselves. Considering the likelihood of deciding whether a homophobic church or pro-equality gays would paint swastikas, I have to go with the church. They did it to draw attention to their stance on gay marriage and to paint themselves as victims.

• Considering you have DLers arguing that the Civil War to end slavery should not have been fought and the South should have been allowed to secede, simply because the majority of the electoral colleges in the South did not support Obama for re-election, I would not be shocked if it was indeed a legitimate vandalization by someone who is unable to deal with complex issues in a rational way. In other words, a Datalounger.

• Hate has consequences, bitches!

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• I can't wait until they discover that the church did indeed vandalize itself. after all, drawing swastikas comes easily to Nazi Christians.

• one of their own church members did this

• Please, look at the workmanship. No Gay would do such shoddy work:

  http://waldo.villagesoup.com/news/story/swastikas-spray-painted-on-stockton-springs-community-church/920745

• This may have been the work of a third party. It may have been done by opponents of Same Sex marriage with no affiliation to the church other than a shared political stance. Yes on 1, in favor of Same Sex Marriage, was expected to pass and it did with 53.3% of the vote. The Yes side had nothing to gain by vandalizing a church. Either a lone crank on our side did this with no support from the rest of us, or equally likely, it was a staged Hate Crime hoax.

• I would bet someone that lives nearby or even goes yo that church did it. "Oh poor us, we are so repressed!"

• They definitely did it to themselves. It's too obvious. Why do they make the jump to say that one spray can vandalizing of their church was done by the Gay Movement? They were painting swastikas on us by doing this.

• Why do they assume it's "those who want to redefine marriage"? Those assholes must have lots of enemies. They did this to get outthe vote. They failed. Sad.

• [quote]Clearly, those who want to redefine marriage also want to redefine tolerance The lack of self-awareness and hypocrisy it takes for him to utter such a sentence is staggering, when you think about it.

• If the pastor or a congregant did this themselves, it was a Freudian slip.

• The church goers did it themselves to make themselves look like victims. They're so convinced that this is what supporters of same sex marriage would've done, they took the initiative and did it for them.

• R4, seriously? Did you see the millions of dollars churches poured into anti-gay marriage campaigns? And besides - any good minister knows his flock will pitch in and fix the place up. Churches make their living fleecing people - willful damage is not beyond them.

• I see in the photos that the swastikas are backwards from the ones used by the Third Reich. Is there some special meaning involved there?

• The swastikas came from *inside* the church!

• Sham and hoax to gain pity - some misguided person within the church did it himself to demonstrate how victimized their religion is. That said, a swastika as a symbol of rightwing fascist politics and gas chambers (they sent the gays, albeit in substantially smaller numbers)would be the appropriate choice to brand their hate-mongering. With so many illiterate people running around, it's a tough call whether the symbol was meant to brand the church or identify the author.