National Press Ignore, Michigan Media Whitewash Gay Anarchist 'Disruption' at Lansing Church (2008)

From Newsbusters - By Tom Blumer Here's the description by Dawson Bell of the Detroit Free Press of what happened during a service at Mt. Hope Church in Lansing, Michigan on Sunday: Pro-gay protest disrupts Lansing-area church's services A well-known Lansing-area evangelical church was the target of a raucous demonstration by gay anarchists during Sunday services.

The disruption came from a group that calls itself Bash Back, and involved demonstrations outside the church and inside the sanctuary while services were under way, said Mt. Hope Church communications director David Williams.
Members of the group inside the church shouted pro-gay slogans, threw leaflets, unfurled a banner and pulled a fire alarm, then hastily departed, Williams said. There were no injuries, he said.
Williams said the episode was over in minutes. Eaton County Sheriff's Department deputies arrived quickly, Williams said, but no arrests were made.
One would think that there was no violence, or any attempt at it. To say the least, eyewitness accounts beg to differ, including this one from RightMichigan, which reads, in part:

On Sunday, November 9, 2008 Michigan liberals sat peacefully through announcements, worship and prayer for the sick, our nation and our President-elect before staging a coordinated, disgusting and repulsive attack on worshipers and the broader concept of the church itself at Lansing's Mount Hope Church.
The lefties were a part of a liberal organization known as Bash Back Lansing and their collection of radical blogs, .... (which) called on "queers and trannies" from across the state and the region to converge on Lansing for what they refer to as an "action." ..... their broader goal is stated plainly on one of their lefty blogs.
"I can tell you that we are targeting a well-known anti-queer, anti-choice radical right wing establishment."
..... Wearing secret-service style ear pieces and microphones they received the "go" from their ringleader and off they went.
Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony. "Jesus was gay," they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss.
Their other props? I'll let them tell you in their own words... from another of their liberal blogs:
"(A) video camera, a megaphone, noise makers, condoms, glitter by the bucket load, confetti, pink fabric...yeh."
The "open minded" and "tolerant" liberals ran down the aisles and across the pews, hoping against hope to catch a "right winger" on tape daring to push back (none did). And just in case their camera missed the target, they had a reporter in tow. According to a source inside the church yesterday there was a "journalist" from the Lansing City Pulse along for the ride .....

Read the whole, painful thing.
The Lansing City Pulse's Nathan Harris was apparently the paper's representative, providing background, a weak excuse, and pluralizing an illegal act that the Free Press's Bell said only happened once (bolds are mine):
The “action” began early Sunday morning at the Northstar Center on Lathrop Street in Lansing where a group of around 20 protesters gathered. Pink bandanas, signs, a rainbow-colored “Bash Back!” flag and a pink, wooden cross were distributed among about half the group — the “outside team.” The rest — “inside team” — were dressed in conservative clothes and carried Bibles and stacks of fliers, intending to blend in to the church‘s 11:30 a.m. “contemporary-laid back service.”
City Pulse was alerted to the Bash Back event through a press release and had no prior knowledge of where the “action” would take place or what it would entail.
.... The Rev. John Elieff, “Helps Minister” at Mt. Hope Church, said Bash Back members disrupted the service by bursting into the sanctuary, throwing fliers, hanging a banner from the balcony and pulling fire alarms.
“It was an unwelcome and violent demonstration,” he said.
The headline at the Lansing State Journal's coverage called the perpetrators "gay rights protestors."
Belaboring what is by now terribly predictable: A Google News search at 11 AM ET on ["mount hope" church michigan] for November 8-12 returned 14 results, none of which were Old Media sources outside of Michigan. The New York Times (search is on "Mount Hope," in quotes), as expected, has nothing relevant.
News consumers who follow blogs know more about this incident than traditional media consumers; even lefty blogs are noting what happened, if only to beg outfits like Bash Back to cool it.
If alternative newspapers are going to assist violent protesters, if local papers aren't going to tell readers what actually happened, and if national newspapers are going to act as if nothing happened, who needs any of them?
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters