Pat Dollard

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“…he said ‘why are you here?’ and she said ‘we’re here to worship God and we’re here because we love you’.”

The words enraged the man, who was soon followed by others. Although the group did no preaching, the mere presence of Christians praying in the Castro District was enough to provoke a frenzy of violence.”

SAN FRANCISCO, November 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A mob of homosexuals sexually and physically assaulted a group of Christians praying together in the city’s Castro District last week, in apparent retaliation for the recent defeat of homosexual marriage in California.

The Christians, a group of Protestants who regularly go to the predominantly homosexual Castro District to sing songs and pray with passers-by, say they were holding hands and singing “Amazing Grace” when a angry mob began to shove and kick them, steal their belongings, pour hot coffee on their faces, and sexually assault them.

“We’d been there for a couple of nights just singing worship songs, people would come up and stand with us and join us, we got to pray for some people,” said one participant in an account filmed at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsxojbyAQGI), “but on Friday night it just was different.”

“We started worshipping, it was kind of like you would walk into someone’s living room, and people are just hanging out with a guitar, worshipping Jesus, just really peaceful,” she continued. “And a man came up after we’d been there for a little while and just began yelling and swearing at us and commanding us to get out of the Castro District, and our leader went up and he said ‘why are you here?’ and she said ‘we’re here to worship God and we’re here because we love you’.”

The words enraged the man, who was soon followed by others. Although the group did no preaching, the mere presence of Christians praying in the Castro District was enough to provoke a frenzy of violence.

“A few men came and they brought a large piece of cloth and covered us with cloth and cornered us into a corner, and they started swearing at us and yelling at us and just filled with hatred, and the crowd grew larger and larger and larger until it ended up being a few hundred people and the bars had emptied out, and we’re completely surrounded by people yelling at us,” the participant recounted.

“And all of a sudden, me and another friend had hot coffee poured on our faces, and I thought they were pouring boiling water on us until I could smell the coffee, and the girl next to me, someone reached in and took her Bible and she went and said ‘I’m sorry that’s mine, can I have it back please?’ and he hit on her head with the Bible, pushed her onto the ground and began kicking her.”

According to the account, members of the crowd began to shove the group and blow whistles in their ears. They took photographs and said “we know who you are, we’re going to kill you”. The group made a circle with the women protected inside. That was when “it got bad, it got perverse,” the participant said.

Although the videotaped participant did not elaborate, a YouTube member who posted a video of the violence included anonymous testimony from a participant claiming that “they were touching and grabbing me, and trying to shove things in my butt, and even trying to take off my pants – basically trying to molest me. I used one hand to hold my pants up, while I used the other arm to hold one of the girls. The guys huddled around all the girls, and protected them.”

After police arrived in riot gear, the mob reportedly became even more agitated, and began to violently lunge at the prayer group, seeking to go between the officers, who had formed a protective line. That was when the videotaped participant said she thought she was going to die.

The police then reportedly insisted in escorting the group out of the Castro District, stating that it was necessary to preserve the lives of the prayer group members. A video on YouTube records the final minutes of the escort, showing angry homosexuals screaming curse words, threatening the Christians, and attempting to force their way through the protective line of police (see video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrRxFoBSPng – photos on this page taken from the video).

San Francisco’s KTVU reports that one opponent of Proposition 8 claimed that “their rights were respected. They got a chance to go ahead and pray on the sidewalk and I had the opportunity to express my freedom of speech which is telling them to get out of my neighborhood.”