Trying to get arrested

So they came to DC to get arrested last week. From the Washington Post:

Conservative Christian ministers from across the land, determined to test the bounds of a new law punishing anti-gay hate crimes, assembled outside the Justice Department ... to denounce the sin of homosexuality and see whether they would be charged with lawbreaking.
....

No arrest was made.....

The evangelical activists had been hoping to provoke arrest, because, as organizer Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission put it, "we'd have standing to challenge the law." But their prayers were not answered. Nobody was arrested, which wasn't surprising: To run afoul of the new law, you need to "plan or prepare for an act of physical violence" or "incite an imminent act of physical violence."

Instead of getting arrested, the ministers got something else: A couple of dozen gay activists, surrounding them with rainbow flags and signs announcing "Gaga for Gay Rights" and "I Am a Love Warrior." By the end, the gay rights activists had taken over the lectern and the sound system and were holding their own news conference denouncing the ministers.....

Seems the A/V guy was sympathetic to gay rights, so let the activists have their say. Heh.

But there was no evidence of persecution at the corner of 10th and Pennsylvania. In fact, the cops at one point intervened to help the ministers, by ordering the gay rights activists to move away.

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, concerned that the gay activists would look like the victims rather than the religious conservatives, went to the microphone to assure the activists that "we did not ask law enforcement to have you moved off of there. They did that on their own. We believe in free speech."

As he spoke, two men, standing behind Mahoney with the ministers, were kissing each other.