Good As You

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09/29/2006

So screams the headline from a story posted on Focus on the Family's CitizenLink site. So obviously the subsequent body text must be about an incident of arson in which the perpetrator has been nabbed and identified as a gay activist, right? I mean, one doesn't make definitive statements about a criminal's characteristics and interests until there is definitive proof, so FOF must have solid facts in order to write up a hed like the one shown above. Yes?

Well, my friends, while such a journalistic approach may seem like an ethical no-brainer, for Focus on the Family, apparently, one need not be nabbed, tagged, and tried before being branded with a label. That's because the Coloardo incident that this story details is one in which nobody has been caught and no connection with gay activism has been actually established.

The back story: A Colorado Springs woman by the name of Christina Sewall reported that at 2:15 in the morning hours of September 27, someone came into her yard and started a bonfire. Since Ms. Sewall has been placing signs in her yard advocating for Focus on the Family's gay rights-challenging "No Moo Lies" website (signs that she previously claimed to FOF have been stolen and vandalized), she and FOF just assume that this bonfire is related to the signage, and that the perp is both gay and an activist. CitizenLink and Ms. Sewall even say of the situation:

...this incident is eye-opening evidence of the appalling lack of "tolerance" among those who advocate the gay agenda.

"How is this being tolerant. They set our lawn on fire?" Sewall asked. "We're not preaching hate, but they are the ones doing the violence."

But they have no proof that any sort of "gay activist" was involved whatsoever! A "gay activist" is a very specific thing, just as is a "anti-gay" or "pro-famiy" activist. Where Ellen Degeneres is gay and Fred Phelps is anti-gay -- neither of them are "activists," per se. Even if the perp is a same-sex sex-loving person, it doesn't mean he's an activist! But at this point, we don't even know he's of the homo persuasion!

And what's even weirder is that Ms. Sewall claims to have the arsonist's face clearly on videotape (by means of a camera she set up following the earlier sign vandalism), yet there are no details of any kind given about the man, and there's no mention that police are investigating the tape in any way. They do say that "the fire department is investigating the blaze as arson and police have filed the incident as a hate crime," but there is just a general lack of detail that seems...odd. We're looking into the police report on the matter, so we'll let you know if we find anything of interest.

Moreover, why did a 2:15AM arson/ hate crime go unreported by every single outlet other than Focus on the Family's CitizenLink? We've searched the news archives throughout the Colorado area, and found not one mention of the Sewall family. Colorado Springs is not a huge market -- middle of the night arsons and even vandalism tend to get some sort of play! And while we're sure FOF would just cite "liberal media bias" as reason for the oversight, we find that cop-out to be just a little too convenient in this instance. Again, we've contacted local media outlets to ask why they chose to ignore this incident, so we'll keep you posted there as well.

FOF and the Sewalls may be telling the 100% truth, and the man responsible for the incident may be a Pride flag-aving employee of the Gill Foundation. But of all of the FOF stories we've looked at over the past few years, this one has really raised some flags in our always-suspicous-of-Focus on the Family- to-begin-with minds. If we are proven wrong, we will be the first to admit it. We are leaving the door wide open for that possibility! But it really just seems that this story is first and foremost a venue for these guys to run a graphic like...

...to play right into their claims that "gays are really the intolerant ones."

We'll keep diggin', and we promise to keep you posted on all discoveries.

Gay Activist Starts Fire in Colorado Family's Front Yard [FOF CitizenLink]

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