Police report contradicts some claims about Bash Back action

Well there's a shock. Seems like the "loving" Christians describing the actions of Bash Back against their church exaggerated a few of the details. First about the fire alarm that was supposedly pulled:

The protest — according to reports from the media, the church and the protesters — was held both inside and outside Mount Hope Church on Nov. 9, during which someone is alleged to have pulled a fire alarm inside the church.

However, a spokesman for the Delta Township Fire Department, which covers fire issues in the area, said today the department had not received any fire alarm calls nor did they respond to one in the area of the church on Sunday.

And second about the "illegal" protest that happened outside:

Also, a church press release stated that “The Eaton County Sheriff’s office was called and the illegal demonstration ceased.” In a follow-up email, Mount Hope Church communications director David Williams asserted that “the demonstration is under investigation.”

But in an interview yesterday, Eaton County Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Warder said that when two officers were called to the scene for “disorderly persons,” they found protesters on the public sidewalk.

“They were picketing,” Warder said. “The church security people came out, the pastor contacted the deputies and told us we want them off our property. We had to tell them they [the protesters] were on public property.”

After further discussion with protesters, it was determined some had parked in the church’s parking lot. Officers directed that the vehicles be removed from the lot, or the owners could face trespassing charges for retrieving them if police had to return. The protest broke up as a result of that, according to the sheriff.

Warder said that at no time did the church inform officers of the disruption inside the church and that no charges were filed. He also said that there was no criminal investigation and that the church had declined to file any formal complaints.

To the extent that the group Bash Back has been unfairly maligned by these "Christians" lying about what really happened, I apologise for my earlier condemnation of them.

That said, it does still appear that the group Bash Back trespassed on the Mt Hope Church's property, which I still condemn as morally wrong. If they're anarchists, then I doubt there's anything I could say to convince them that trespassing of any kind is wrong, but I would point out that it's counterproductive. Yes, some of the reason it's counterprodcutive is because anti-gay people are good at exaggerating the wrongfulness of any actions against them in order to elicit undeserved sympathy, like they've apparently done here to some extent, but I think that the fact of these exaggerations and smears needs to be taken into account when protesting.

Yes, I think that it's monstrously that we have to do that, but if life was fair, we'd have marriage rights by now.