The Deacon's Bench
The billboard above, which I mentioned in this post, is literally coming under attack:
A couple of hundred protesters are outside an Auckland Anglican church calling for a controversial Christmas billboard to be taken down.
The group, which began gathering at 11am, were praying the Rosary and said the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding a pregnancy test kit was an attack on her fecundity.
Catholic Action’s Arthur Skinner, from Whangarei, said they were protesting because the image was blasphemous.
They had a statue of the Blessed Virgin with flowers around it as part of their procession.
Arthur Skinner said the image had nothing to do with scripture.
Yesterday, stunned passers-by watched as a scissors-wielding zealot slashed the billboard and tore off a large chunk.
The grey-haired man appeared to be alone as he attacked the poster outside the St Matthew-in-the-City church in central Auckland before driving off.
Skinner later claimed responsibility for the incident. He was believed to have earlier phoned St Matthew’s vicar Glynn Cardy to say he would “roast slowly in hell” for erecting the billboard.
“He told me I would burn in the fires of hell, that would be my final destination,” Cardy said.
Catholic Church spokesman Lyndsay Freer said she, too, had received an unhappy phone call from who she thought was Skinner about the poster.
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