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WINNIPEG, January 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Christian-based Centre for Youth Excellence in Winnipeg’s downtown area, along with St. Margaret’s Anglican Church and nearby Tall Grass Bakery, were plastered with pro-abortion and anti-Christian posters during the Christmas season.

The posters, which appear to depict Mary on a donkey being led by Joseph to a building with the words “Women’s Health Care Services” on the outside, state: “We wish you a pro-choice because God raped Mary Christmas” and are signed “Youth Against Christ.”

The posters appear to have been professionally designed and printed according to reports.

The Centre for Youth Excellence is a $13.2-million project of Youth For Christ that is under construction in what has been described as “one of downtown’s dreariest corners, at Main Street and Higgins Avenue.” It is intended to provide a recreation center for inner-city youth.

It will have a multi-sport gym, dance studio, fitness center, skate-and-BMX park, drop-in center, theatre, classrooms, counseling facilities and a job-training center.

Youth For Christ executive director John Courtney described the posters as “very low.”

“This was a very poor choice for a pro-choice group to try to get their message out,” he said in a Winnipeg Free press report. “It is very low … it’s not a responsible way to handle their cause.”

Courtney said he at first believed the attack was directed only at Youth for Christ, but with the Anglican church and Christian-owned bakery also being targeted, he now believes it was a general attack against Christianity.

“I had thought it’s specifically an attack against Youth for Christ. I’m not convinced of that now,” Courtney told reporters on Wednesday. “If this were any religion other than Christianity, it would quickly be labeled a hate crime.”

“It was far more than just defacing something. It was someone who was very angry and very resentful towards Christians and the Christian message and the Christian cause,” Courtney told local media.

Tall Grass Bakery co-owner Lyle Barkman told the Winnipeg Free Press that he believes he was targeted because of his overt Christianity.

“It’s not the first graffiti we’ve had — we’re in the inner city,” he said. “It comes with the territory.”

Courtney told the media he intends to file a police complaint about the incident.