Religious group claims hate attack -- no evidence found.

Here is the original story that the fanatical fundamentalists are spreading through the internet. According to the Mullahs at Focus on the Family a peaceful group of Christians, witnessing as to how their prayers can cure homosexuality, were set upon with a “barrage of verbal abuse and one man was reportedly assaulted by a gay activist.” This supposed at a county fair.

According to Regina Griggs this “cured” homosexual was standing there mind his own business and: “They walked by him and hit him in the back -- attacked him.” Focus on the Family says that police “kicked the gay activists out of the fair and encouraged” the poor, persecuted Christians to press charges, but they chose not to do so. One should know that Griggs has been on an antigay vendetta ever since she found out her son was gay.

The Christian “news” service Lifesite, never one to pass up an antigay rumor, reported on the story but added their own unique, fanciful touch. They described “angry homosexual activists “ who “harassed and assaulted” these peaceful, loving Christians.

They also claimed that police “ejected” the violent activist and that the victim of this assault “declined to press charges citing the example of Jesus Christ.” Oh, how sanctimonious. Another Focus on the Family outlet described how a “cheerful day at a Virginia county fair ended in chaos” after an attack by “homosexual activists.”

The folks over at Ex-Gay Watch were skeptical. First, they tried to find out what gay group had a booth at the fair, since they were the ones which Focus on the Family and others accused of the assault. They found it was the Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance and they contacted the president, Daniel Hays, who was perplexed. He said:

I worked several evening shifts at the Arlington Gay & Lesbian Alliance booth. I did hear one, what I would call “heated” discussion, but never saw any thing beyond raised voices. Our organization purposefully did not do anything to even interact with them, but I cannot speak to what individual fairgoers may or may not have said or done when I was not there.

Next they contacted Denis Roller, event manager for the fair. She said that if there was an incident nobody bothered to tell the fair about it. She said she was at the fair almost the whole time it was open and knew of no such altercation.

Next Exgay Watch decided to check with the Arlington police. After all the police supposedly evicted a violent homosexual activist and urged his victims to press charges. Police media Relations officer, John Lisle, said he knew nothing about the alleged attack. He asked around the police department and couldn’t find anyone else who knew of such an incident either. He read the report issued by Christian groups and he spent another two days trying to find anyone who knew about such an attack. He came up empty handed. There was no police report on such an incident and no police officer could remember such an incident.

What are we left with? The religious group won’t name anyone as the attacker. In spite of the prevelance of cell phones with cameras no one photographed the assault that allegedly took place. The gay group in question says they know nothing about it. The fair organizers know nothing about it and were there most of the time themselves. Police have no record of the incident either and, so far, no police officer has recollection of such an attack.

The anti-gay religious group in question conveniently refused to file a formal complaint against the attacker thus assuring that no record would exist to verify their story. They say they were following the example of Jesus. So instead of filing a complaint against the attacker they spread the story around the internet to smear the entire gay group at the fair. I would have thought that if they were turning the other cheek they wouldn’t be broadcasting this story around the net so heavily.

The antigay hate group, Americans for Truth (a sure sign they are distorting facts), repeated the claim. They quoted the group in question as saying: “As happens every year, gay activists disrupted our booth activities.” Every year! And no one knows about it -- talk about stealth attacks.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Focus on the Family has invented, or reported, false stories. Maybe it happened but no evidence for the attack seems to exist. And since the victims were supposedly being so holy, as to not press charges, we have nothing but their word to go on. And that’s not much. So what are the odds they were lying? Substantial, I would think.

Interesting thing about these religious fanatics. They are so quick to quote Scripture. Yet, I have to wonder what they would think about: "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Proverbs says that "a lying tongue" is an "abomination" to God. Matthew wrote that among the things "which defile a man" is "false witness". Revelations said "all liar shall have their part in the lake which burnest with fire and brimstone." Since they are so quick to use that book as weapon to bash people over the head with I have to wonder why they ignore it when it comes to their own vicious, smear campaigns.