All the pro-gay groups and blogs are trumpeting this as evidence of how hypocritical Catholics are, how the big, bad patriarchists are showing their true colors, oppressing women and gays and whatnot. Not that I believe this happened the way they claim—I tend to believe Larry Cirignano’s story—but even if it were so, what about all the personal assaults by pro-aborts and pro-gays and all the others on Catholics and other Christians and marriage supporters? I’ve been to pro-life and pro-marriage rallies and I’ve seen the verbal and physical violence directed at our side, often elderly grandmothers and grandfathers. I don’t even want to get into the vile language directed at priests. Ask Kelly Clark about having to walk the gauntlet every Sunday as she attended Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston during the height of the Scandal. She has said that children entering the church were told to run away or cover their (explicit words for privates) to keep from being molested inside.
But here we have what looks like it amounts to either a staged incident or the blowing up of a minor accident into felony assault and suddenly all the media and all the liberal blogs and all the gay media from coast to coast are pointing at this as if they finally had photographic evidence of a common occurrence. Pitiful.
“Catholic group leader denies pushing activist”
The executive director of a Catholic group founded by Raymond Flynn, former Boston mayor, yesterday denied pushing a gay marriage supporter, who fell to the ground in Worcester during a weekend rally organized to criticize the Legislature for not allowing a constitutional vote on the contentious issue.
Sarah Loy, 27, who supports same-sex marriages, said she was facing the crowd with a sign that read “No discrimination in the constitution” when a man approached her outside city hall, telling her she had to leave. Before she could go, she said, he grabbed her by the shoulders with both hands and pushed her backward . Loy said she fell to the ground.
“He came out of nowhere,” she said. “It happened very fast. I never imagined someone would push me.”
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, which covered the rally on Saturday, identified the man as Larry Cirignano, executive director of Catholic Citizenship, which is described on its website as a nonpartisan organization that promotes political activism among Catholics.
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported that police interviewed but did not arrest Cirignano. Loy said she intended to file a complaint, but Worcester police refused to discuss the incident yesterday.
In a telephone interview last night, Cirignano acknowledged guiding the woman away from the event with his arm on her back, but said he had a portfolio in his left hand and did not knock her down.
He said he did not see her fall. “I promise you, I did not throw her to the ground.”
Flynn, who spoke at the event, said in a written statement yesterday, “I didn’t see any incident, but nobody has the right to push anyone. The marriage issue is very important and everyone is entitled to protest and demonstrate peacefully.”
Loy said she was not injured during the fall.
That last sentence is very interesting because it directly contradicts some of the so-called eyewitness testimony that is being trumpeted as corroborating her story. At the very liberal Blue Mass Group blog, “rollbiz” claims to have seen something very different.
I was 10 feet away, and I saw it. I had to go and pick her up off the pavement, comfort her, and get her the hell out of there. ... Ms. Loy, admittedly, was in a section of the rally where she should have expected some resistance to her presence. But to be shoved to the ground by a 240+lb. man so hard that her head hit the pavement?
... There were several witnesses who all gave similar accounts of the altercation, and yet police let this man walk free. It wasn’t a bump or a jostle. Cirignano took her by the shoulders, with both hands, and shoved her to the ground. I saw it, and I don’t think there was any misinterpreting his intent. He meant to hurt her.
So which is it? Did she hurt herself or did she hit her head on a particularly soft part of the pavement? Did he put both hands on her shoulders and shove her to the ground or did he have a clipboard in one hand and direct with with one arm behind her back? Since the Worcester Police took no action against Cirignano, I’m guessing the “assault” story didn’t stand up. I also wonder how long Loy’s complaint against Cirignano will stand up in court or even whether she’ll file it.
In the past, at such rallies, when members of one or another side tried to stand in the midst of their foes to foment trouble, it was the police who intervened and escorted the person out. I think Larry should have let the police take care of it this time too. It’s a hard lesson he’s learned.
Update: Catholic blogger JayG of Defend the Faith blog was there and gives his eyewitness account.
Technorati Tags:Catholic, Cirignano, Citizenship, homosexuality, Massachusetts, same-sex marriage, Worcester
Funny, other than a short story in the Globe yesterday and a squib today, this doesn’t seem to be creating much media heat. The news angle is not the alleged shoving itself, but the idea that it was a leader doing it. That kind of angle tends to breed short news stories. If the head of SNAP was alleged to have shoved a congregant of Holy Cross Cathedral on Washington Street, I would think it would attract at least as much attention.
Execrable as the Globe can be, it takes some discipline to restrain the knee-jerk reaction of MSM bias.
Blue Mass Group and Know Thy Neighbor are already decrying, get this, media bias on the part of the Globe. Yeah right.
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette has much more, of course, since it’s in their backyard. However, the T&G requires a paid subscription so I can’t link to their story. And then the gay media is all over like white on rice.
Who is the one who claims that Larry Cirignano weighs
” 240+ lbs.”? I’ve seen Larry a number of time at the MFI office and there is no way that he weighs that much. He’s a light -weight in physical appearances. But he has tremendous strength of character and insight!
Thank goodness that Sarah Loy didn’t try that strategy at the Nov. 9 rally in Boston at the State House. She would have had the Boston policemen believing her even if she was faking falling because it appeared to me that the Boston policemen who were near the rear lines of Vote On Marriage supporters in front of the steps leading down to the Boston Common, allowed the MassEquality supporters, who were screaming at us to “Go Home!”, to keep coming up closer and closer toward us until they were no more than a foot away. Some had a long banner which they were pushing towards us. I was afaid they would knock me over, so I stepped a few feet to my right to ask the policeman what I should do if they came any closer. He angrily yelled at me:“Get back over where you were!” He obviously thought his job was to protect the MassEquality crowd and he did not intend to protect those of us who supported the Marriage Amendment! Fortunately, some gentlemen on our side let me get up closer and away from the Massequality crowd. I just hope that there is better protection for us at the Jan.2nd Constitutional Convention!
Although I wasn’t there, I know Larry and am confident that the incident happened as he described it. I’m sure the protester forced herself into an area where they were not authorized to be and he was politely trying to escort her away. Should have been the police who did the escorting, but alas, they’re not helpful to our side.
If the head of SNAP was alleged to have shoved a congregant of Holy Cross Cathedral on Washington Street, I would think it would attract at least as much attention.
I don’t Liam. Maybe today you’d be right. But the October before last October, on pro-life Sunday, Know Thy Neighbor was out in full force on Washington Street, and there was some shoving going on. That wasn’t that long ago.
On the other hand, we’d gotten so used to it that filing a complaint would’ve seemed ludicrous. Sadly, my experience with Boston’s finest on occasions such as these seem to replicate Alice’s.
I was commenting on this at the
http://blog.worcestercountyrepublicanclub.com/?p=240
One commenter said how horrible they pushed of all people a woman. So I had to speak up assault is wrong, but why do they have to strip the word marriage apart, since marriage protects the most venerable which are mothers. Marriage protects mothers from poverty, and marriage protects her children from committing crime if the father is committed to the family.
I was trying to explain the rational why the word marriage must be distictive for heterosexuals engaging in natural sexual activity since women and the fruits of the relationship the children benefit from the institution, I even suggested to call all things civil unions so we can leave definition of marriage as is in which a commenter told my I had a psychological disorder.
In order to have same sex marriage all rational and dignity of human sexuality has to be eliminated including the resulting children, but marriage is exactly what upholds the dignity of human sexuality.
I know I’m a compassionate person, but I’m not a door mat.
So I have to ask who is going to stand up for the most venerable, mothers and children? Who is going to stand up for husbands and fathers who spend much of the day working to provide? These families do not have time to fight against those who wish to destroy the definition of marriage, because well we need to tend and care to our families. We can’t speak out, because our time is limited and also we do not have the extra cash on hand to lobby such efforts unlike those for same-sex marriage.
An indvidual video’d the counter protesters at Worcester…. it was rather nasty and disturbing.
http://www.lonniebrennan.com./media/nuts.wmv
I’m not angry, I am just sad. Really sad about this. I think I’ve run out of options to explain what marriage is to these people, because they have no frame of reference of what sacrificial love really is. For them to be right in their conclusion of what marriage is, everyone has to be wrong.
I truly believe this isn’t about civil rights, it is about the word marriage. They ‘hate’ marriage because they (same sex couples) can never fulfill and consumate the act. Marriage is the one thing they can never have. Sure they can have a piece a paper that says marriage, but marriage isn’t about legal benefits or detriments i.e. divorce. But they can never perform sacrifical love, they can not live it day in and day out like a man and woman can. Marriage isn’t a right, but a gift. A gift that is defined by our sexual bodies, in which we express it through our bodies.
I’m not trying to be mean, cruel, or even hateful. I just saying same sex couples can never replicate marriage as a matter of natural law. Who is fooling who? Despite every but of legislation, they can only fool themselves.