This is why Humanists get grants from the Equality commission and Christians don't.

In order to keep an eye on things, I keep the news feed of the Christian Institute in my Google Reader subscription list. They’re normally surprisingly even-handed, reporting on news events relevant to Christians (assuming that Christians mostly hate the gays) in a relatively impartial way. For example, their coverage of the £35,000 grant given to the British Humanist Association was far less insane than the Telegragh’s. But today I think they must have got bored of that or just snapped or something because this ‘report’ is at best thinly veiled propaganda.

Elderly Christian woman surrounded by gay mob

I’m pretty sure that was a ‘mob’ of liberals of all sexualities, albeit angry shouting ones.

An angry crowd of pro ’˜gay marriage' protestors surrounded and frightened an elderly Christian woman in Palm Springs, California - live on TV. The group was protesting against the democratic result of a state-wide vote which defended the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

I love that last sentence. It’s the poorest attempt I’ve seen in a long time to appear balanced. It opens with an implication that anyone who opposes gay marriage also opposes democracy and then lurches straight into abusing the word ‘defended’ where clearly the right word to use is ‘amended’. And to top it all off, it’s not democratic, because the whole point of the system of democracy used in California is that the people can’t simply enforce any random prejudice they like just by voting for it – that’s why there’s a constitution in the first place, and it’s why there are strict procedures that have to be followed in order to amend it, which in this case were completely ignored.

The incident, which occurred earlier this month, was sparked when a pro ’˜gay marriage' protestor attacked a styrofoam cross being carried by 69-year-old Phyllis Burgess. The cross was yanked from her hands and stamped on, leaving it in tatters on the floor.

Poor styrofoam cross.

Angry protestors surrounded the elderly lady, shouting abuse within inches of her face.

Yes, well, I’m not going to condone that, but if you are going to tell someone they can’t get married for a really stupid reason and then turn up at their protest with a massive foam symbol of that really stupid reason, how do you think they are going to react?

Really, the Christian Institute has no business even reporting this story. It’s about an event that happened 5000 miles away, and it’s not as if it’s representative of a wider problem facing Christians: it’s not really persecution if you deliberately walk into a large group of people who are understandably very, very angry at you for taking away their basic rights and hard-won equality because you think that the made-up opinions of an invisible wizard who lives in the sky are more important. And I notice she escaped entirely unharmed.

Palm Springs Police Department spokesman, Sergeant Mitch Spike, told American news network, FOX News, that no arrests had yet been made. "The investigation is proceeding as it should," Sgt. Spike said. Asked if the charges could be elevated to include hate crime penalties, he told FOX News: "That's a possibility. That's one of the things we're looking at."

From this we can conclude that despite having a clearly demonic name, Mitch Spike is a devout Christian. We know this because only a Christian could ever think that shouting at someone for hating gay people could possibly be construed as a ‘hate crime’.

The incident is the latest in a spate of disorderly protests by supporters of ’˜gay marriage'.

Nice inverted commas there. I don’t even know why it’s such a big deal. It doesn’t remotely affect Christians, except for some gay ones who it actively benefits. It’s not as if the churches will be expected to conduct or recognise these marriages: it’s an entirely secular, legal contract. It has nothing to do with the wholly separate religious ceremony also called marriage. The tax status of homosexuals surely can’t be an issue to Christians? Aside from anything else, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly the sex that they object to. Hint to crazy Christians: it’s only you that abstains from sex until marriage. Irreligious folk and most of the less crazy religious ones don’t bother with all that stuff.

The protestors are angered at losing a vote on the definition of marriage, known as ’˜proposition 8'.

“Angered at losing”. Nice. Classy. Certainly that’s the only possible reason for them to be upset. It’s not as if they’re being treated like second-class citizens or anything.

American religious liberty legal group, the Alliance Defense Fund, has released a YouTube video giving a flavour of the protestors behaviour during the past month.

…which you have uncritically reproduced even though it’s utterly moronic. Seriously, it plays threatening music the whole time and ends in the phrase “whose rights are really being violated?” as if that’s an argument for their side. And for the record, the Alliance Defense Fund are not a “religious liberty legal group”, they’re a bunch of bigoted Christian thugs.

Come on. This isn’t good enough. When you report news like this you become part of the problem.