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This is a case of the police NOT doing their job and playing favorites.

First, this “Christian” group is not the Westboro Baptist group, but they do employ some of their tactics. They don’t go to soldiers funerals with “God Hates Faggots” signs, but they do go to gay pride parades with those kinds of signs.

This group reportedly is an “in your face” aggressive “Christian” evangelistic group and supposedly (I haven’t seen them so I can’t confirm) carried signs at this festival saying “Muhammed was a Pedophile” and a pig’s head on a pole. Here is the group’s leader, Ruben Israel, Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ruben.israel.5

The point of their ministry seems more (at least to me) to provoke rather than to engage in witnessing one’s viewpoint. If this group indeed showed up with signs insulting to Muhammed, what did they think was going to be the reaction?

Now, having said all of that - that doesn’t excuse what the Muslims did to them. This, after all, is supposed to be America where one is supposed to be able to voice opposition as freedom of speech.

Although I am not surprised at the reaction this group got, and in some way I think the “Christian” group accomplished their mission to “provoke” a response - the equal or even greater crime is that the Dearborn Police stood by and did nothing to stop what was going on. They only arrested the Christian group, but no one from the Muslim group that was assaulting them.

THAT reaction by the police is what is going to encourage this kind of behavior toward ANY Christian group. In fact, three years ago during the same “Arab Festival” a similar but not quite so violent encounter took place between Muslims and a few Christians who were only trying to engage in a conversation with some Muslims at a “Information Booth” at the festival. I’ve linked the article from the Baptist Press below:

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=30835