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A controversial Christmas time billboard depicting the Virgin Mary holding up a pregnancy testing kit has been vandalised. - Source: ONE News
Arthur Skinner with the vandalised billboard. - Source: ONE News
Auckland's Saint Matthews in the City is defending its choice of a billboard, which depicts the Virgin Mary looking at a pregnancy test with concern, after it was ripped down this morning.
Religious leader Arthur Skinner drove from Whangarei this morning to lead a protest against the billboard, and ripped off the offending section.
The protesting group calls itself Catholic Action Group.
"Even people who aren't Catholics know instinctively you don't
attack the Blessed Virgin who gave us the savour of the world,"
said Skinner.
"Half the world is celebrating Christmas at the moment, and to see
this at this time is an absolute abomination."
"The blessed virgin doesn't need a pregnancy test, she knew she was pregnant, she agreed to it and she would have been full of joy to know that she had conceived our lord."
But Glynn Cardy, Vicar at St Matthews, told ONE News that the billboard was not designed to upset people, rather it was designed to communicate a message and get people talking.
"[Mary] would have been accused of having an illegitimate child, she was a poor young woman.
"It's really asking people to remember, coming into Christmas, that this was a woman of tremendous courage and faith, that she was not some plasticised icon, somebody who doesn't have human feelings."
Cardy has not decided yet whether to replace the billboard, but says he may not bother.
Skinner freely admits he is guilty of vandalising the billboard.
"If they want to arrest me then so be it," he said.
Billboards put up by St Matthew in past years have also attracted controversy, and have been vandalised as a result.
The church describes itself as catering for a progressive congregation.
Skinner orchestrated a protest at the national museum, Te Papa,
in Wellington, over its display of the Virgin in a Condom in
1998.
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