bilerico's bil browning was the first to report today that the "would jesus discriminate?" billboards around town are under attack from vandals:

Two billboards were defaced. One had "LIE LIE LIE" spraypainted on it, while the other had the word "gay" excised out of "The early church welcomed a gay man. Acts 8:26-40." The second sign has already been repaired. In both cases the vandals would have had to use extension ladders to reach the billboards. Both signs are located in very populated areas.

The church is also distributing thousands of yard signs with the campaign's URL on it as the message - WouldJesusDiscriminate.com On at least four separate occasions, church members putting out the signs have been shadowed by individuals systematically removing the yard signs behind them in an effort to silence the church's question.

"There appears to be some kind of organized effort to suppress our message of hope," says Rev. Jeff Miner, Senior Pastor of JMCC. "But that will only reinforce our determination to go forward. For too long, religious extremists have distorted what the Bible really says about homosexuality. We're taking the Bible back, and religious extremists aren't happy about it."

but the indy star noticed, too, and about an hour after bil's post went up, robert king filed a story. the star article closes with this passage:

Several church leaders in the city say the ad campaign is built on false statements and distorted readings of scripture. But Rev. Andy Hunt of Body of Christ Community Church said vandalism is always a wrong response.

"It ignites passions whenever someone brings a lie against the god you worship," Hunt said. "But we can't go down to their level."

what a jerk! hunt doesn't just say he disagrees with the JMCC's interpretations of scripture: he accuses them of bringing a lie against god and implies that putting up these billboards is no better than vandalism itself.

i have to wonder whether rev hunt has even been to wouldjesusdiscriminate.com, as their analysis is fairly convincing.

update: bil points out in the comments that i misread the timestamp on his post... the star story was actually posted around 13 to 14 hours after his post went up. oops.¶

I'm not really worried about the credit for this story, I'm just curious... Where did you get the "about an hour" timeline for the King story? The websites say my post went up at 11:45pm Monday night and his story went up at 2:09pm Tuesday. Since your post is dated for 1:59pm, we know this can't be true... ¶

my mistake bil... the original timestamp on the star story was 1:09, not 2:09. i'm not sure why it changed. when i saw the 11:45 on your post, i guess i just assumed it was 11:45 this morning, not last night. ¶