A small Unitarian church in the exurbs of Baltimore got attacked - with swastikas and BB guns - for being liberal. This diary is modified from a Maryland-specific website and may contain a little more "local bent" than is typical for a DKos diary.
From the Carroll County Times, November 18, 2006:
For a period of several weeks from late August into September, the Cedarhurst Unitarian Universalist Association's church in Finksburg was repeatedly vandalized.
The church has decided to go public with what happened.
"It seemed it was an almost articulated plan of intimidation," said Cedarhurst's pastor, the Rev. Henry Simoni-Wastila. "This was not just mindless vandalism for entertainment purposes. This was directed at our identity."
That makes it a hate crime, he said.
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According to messages left by the vandals, they were attacking the church's theology, Simoni-Wastila said, but he would not explain how.
"You don't want to get into that game of defending yourself against outlandish charges," he said
He did say the church was attacked for being too liberal and not part of the majority religious belief system of Carroll County.
The Unitarian Universalists, a denomination of about 240,000, promotes tolerance of gays and other groups and accepts many faith traditions under one umbrella. The goal of the denomination is to help each individual in his or her spiritual journey. Though she did not see the messages, Warburton said they seemed to attack the church for being inclusive of all religions.
Unlike other incidents in the county, where churches have had signs supportive of gays ripped down or defaced, these crimes did not attack the Unitarian Universalists' endorsement of gay rights, Simoni-Wastila said, but attacked the church for existing.
For readers from outside the area, Finksburg is on the extreme eastern edge of Carroll County along Route 140, near Reisterstown. It is, literally, border country between a moderate suburban region of Baltimore and a very conservative rural county.
I have attended services at CUU on one occasion. The former pastor of CUU - the mother of a Princeton acquaintance of mine - married me and my wife at a ceremony in Annapolis in 1999. While I have not continued to attend services there and was never a regular there, it makes my blood boil that this should happen there - or anywhere, of course - but there especially.
Thugs who objected to the liberal theology and liberal morality of the CUU on sexual matters shot and swastika-ed the church. These thugs do not represent the mainstream of Carroll County; while Carroll is extremely conservative, these crimes were not an act of conservatism but of fascist, theocratic thuggery, and that has NOT been part of Carroll County's culture, particularly eastern Carroll abutting the more moderate Baltimore suburbs.
Frankly, learning of this makes me want to get active with that church. It is the nearest Unitarian church to my house. The best way to rebuke these thugs is to help the church grow.
CUU is not large, maybe 100 members or so. Its building is not ostentatious, fairly easy to miss. Carroll County has voted Republican in every Presidential election since Hoover, except barely (1 percent) going for Johnson. The county paper has lots of "religion notes" including, in this instance, this story about the sole Unitarian church in the county near the Reisterstown line. Carroll County is home to many Methodist churches, many Lutheran churches founded by and for the families of German immigrants whose names dot the hills and farms of the area. There are also many more conservative churches including Pentacostal churches, Assemblies of God and many independent churches. Growth in the eastern part of the county, including the influx of many African-American residents (about 2% of the county is Black), has changed the character of the county slightly. Growth brings moderate, Democrats, Jewish residents, Baltimoreans who enter the county rear-end first looking east to Baltimore, not face-first looking at the county seat of Westminster.
Sadly, I am surprised the church has survived this long without getting assaulted by thugs.