Marriage-Equality Foe In WA Claims She Was “Attacked” By Crazy Gay Man

A member of the group Preserve Marriage Washington (PMW), which opposes the state’s pending gay-marriage law, says she was accosted by a young man angered by her anti-equality values.

Arlene Mark, 61, told police she was confronted outside a Safeway in Burien, WA, on Sunday by a man in his 20s who ripped the “Reject Referendum 74″ sign off her car and began kicking her car and cussing at her.

The PMW blog has her side of the story:

According to the victims, the assailant ran at Arlene’s car, hit the back of her vehicle, and ripped the Reject 74 campaign yard sign off of the side of her car that she had taped onto her vehicle so that other volunteers who were going to meet her in the parking lot could recognize her in the rain.  As he tore the sign, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it, the same-sex marriage activist yelled at Arlene, “This is what I think of your f—ing sign!  I’m gay and proud of it.”

The perpetrator shouted vulgar profanities at Arlene calling her a “b—-” and screaming “f—- you!”

The assailant then turned his ire on Nikki Davis, an individual uninvolved with the campaign who came to Arlene’s aid. He proceeded to hurl racial epithets and vile slurs at her, including calling her a “black b—-” and the n-word, and telling her to “go back to Africa.”

He also pounded on the back of the van, and kicked its tires. Nikki, who was terrified for Arlene, for herself, and for her children who were with her in the car, called the police.

Not surprisingly, there was no visible damage to the car and no surveillance cameras in the area to record what happened. Also not surprisingly? PMW held a press conference on Tuesday for Mark to share her sob story.

Zach Silk of the pro-equality group Washington United for Marriage says such tales of harassment are “well-worn, cynical political tactics” used by marriage foes to garner sympathy. “[They've] regularly trotted it out since [Prop 8],” Silk told The Seattle Times. “They have neatly turned the basic argument — that they and their supporters are subject to harassment — into a near constant lament in the final weeks of these campaigns.”

So what do you think: Was this a kindly old lady bashed by a mean old homo—or a canny opportunist crying wolf to make her crew of bigots look like victims? Sound off on the comments section below!