Driver plows down church cross display
BY NICK KOTZEA
Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune
A Hermantown church's display of crosses didn't sit well Wednesday with an unidentified driver.
Broken crosses littered the tire track-covered lawn of Gethsemane Covenant Church, 4479 Ugstad Road, on Thursday morning as volunteers surveyed damage to the "Cemetery of Innocence," a display of 400 three-foot crosses each representing 10 abortions.
More than 80 of the white PVC pipe crosses were knocked down or damaged, and some will have to be replaced. Lives represented by the crosses equal the number of abortions performed each day, said Jim Tuttle, Duluth branch manager of St. Paul-based Pro-Life Action Ministries, the group that manages the cross display.
"The crosses evoke a reaction -- sometimes it's shock when people recognize the extent of abortion, and sometimes it's anger when people are having a difficult time dealing with a personal experience," said Tuttle, who sets up the cross display at regional churches about six times per year.
The Rev. Steve Weihsmann, of Gethsemane Covenant Church, said the vandalism occurred between 5:30 and 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. He filed a report Thursday morning with the Hermantown Police Department. Department representatives did not return a telephone request for more information.
In Tuttle's three years of managing the cross display, this is the second time it has been vandalized. Two years ago, crosses were knocked down when the display was set up at Central Assembly of God Church in Superior.
Nobody was arrested in either incident, so the motive remains unclear.