When antigay fundamentalists periodically spray-paint walls, break windows or commit arson at gay-tolerant churches, Focus on the Family does not leap on the air and blame “pro-family activists.” In fact, Focus often fails to report the crime.

Yet when, in the wee hours of Feb. 10, some unwitnessed coward tossed a single carton of eggs at a St. Louis church building that will host an upcoming exgay roadshow, Focus exgay operative Melissa Fryrear raced to print with a sensational story lacking any evidence that “gay activists” were, as Focus alleges, to blame for the “vandalism” of one ruined egg carton.

Focus could have cited police investigators’ initial progress in tracing the eggs. Focus could also have calculated the repair costs — $0.79 for a sponge and water, and perhaps 25 cents per egg. Focus could even have one-upped the egg-thrower by scrambling the eggs for an impromptu church buffet this weekend.

Instead, Focus deliberately confuses acts of vandalism with the honored tradition of American political protest — and justifies its accusations by citing arbitrary acts of minor vandalism that are attributable not to gay activists, but to individual vandals.

Let us bow our heads for a moment of prayer for the idiot who wasted a carton of perfectly good eggs — and for a deeply paranoid religious sect that equates broken eggs with the murder of gay Christians and history’s other true martyrs.

In the view of Focus on the Family, political protest appears to be indistinguishable from vandalism unless the protesters agree with Focus on the Family. And silly pranks, most likely committed by unidentified youths, rate as page-one material, while reports of arson and murder against gay people of faith go unreported anywhere on the Focus web site.

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