I thought we were done targeting churches as a protest against their pro-life stances. I stand corrected.
On Saturday evening, vandals attacked a pro-life church in Palermo, Maine. They vandalized a pro-life sign that was displayed at the town's Second Baptist Church and added two of their own slogans pushing for both abortion and LGBTQ rhetoric.
Prior to the attack, the church displayed a sign that read, “Every Life Matters,” and “Abortion is Still Murder.” According to News Center Maine’s website, those signs were covered in paint, hiding the pro-life messaging.
To make matters worse, the vandals scribbled the words “Abortion is our Human right” on a sheet that was hung on the side of the building and “Queer love 4 eva” on the side of a dumpster that resided below the once pro-life sign.
Those messages were displayed as congregants walked up to the church for their weekly Sunday service. Justifiably so, they were in utter shock.
Supposedly, this isn’t the first time Second Baptist Church has been a target for attack. In 2019, after the church publicly displayed its views on LGBTQ issues and abortion, vandals bashed a sign that said, “Jesus made Adam N Eve not Adam and Steve,” and the church's pro-life sign was vandalized again back in 2022.
State Representative Katrina Smith, who is also a member at the church, spoke with News Center Maine and expressed that “This is an escalation of violence against the church,” later adding that it’s a “hate crime.”
“This is a group of young children, families, just local people, and they have done nothing to speak out against any of the issues right now,” Smith insisted.
Time will tell what happens with the situation. Presently, the vandal hasn’t been identified. But even if he or she is, legally, it’s unclear whether or not the situation will fall into the qualification of a hate crime.
Maine’s criminal code indicates that a hate crime occurs when a person attempts “to injure, intimidate or interfere with or intentionally oppress or threaten any other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege.”
A trial attorney in the area, TImothy Zerillo, indicated the case could qualify as a hate crime as “destruction of property … theoretically falls into the category of hate crime in the state of Maine,” News Center Maine reported.
Bob Kurek, a member of the Palermo Select Board said he was clear.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion," he said. "And even if that opinion is a strong opinion, it does not give people who disagree with that opinion the right to vandalize property or destroy property."
It remains to be seen what happens in Maine, but the thing to note is that the left still likes to act like toddlers having a temper tantrums and will destroy property, vandalize and rage when people disagree with them.
