Church and state collide at this polling place

From our reporters Jessica Turrell and Sam Miller:

Voters in Westminster’s Precinct 003941 perform their civic duty today at the Christian Reform Church of Orange County on Magnolia Street.

Greeting them is a phalanx of “Yes on 8″ signs - a veritable fence, actually - with that gleeful traditional family throwing its arms in the air in elation.

The plain and sober “VOTE” sign, denoting an official polling place, is at the end of said phalanx. (Our reporter, Jessica Terrell, took these photos.)

It struck even some Yes on 8 supporters - who’d like a ban on gay marriage - as odd, “It’s a little excessive. I don’t know what they were trying to prove with all those signs. I don’t think there was a need for them,” said a voter who declined to give her name.

Are those signs OK? We asked the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

Yes, they are, so long as the signs are at least 100 feet from the entrance to the poll site, said Brett Rowley, Registrar spokesman (who sounded a wee bit harried).

The entrance to the polling place was around the back of the church, and the signs were along the street in front of the church, so all appears well.

But at least one other church chose not to wear its heart on its sleeve. At Sea Coast Grace Church in Cypress, staffers removed Prop. 8 signs this morning. “We wanted our campus to be a neutral environment for people not to be hassled,” said Cody Surratt, a pastor.

Prop. 8, obviously, elicits a great deal of passion. Longtime Republican activist Kenneth Fisher reports that about 10 Yes on 8 signs that sprouted at the corner of Bixby and Brookhurst in Garden Grove were destroyed overnight.

Reports of vandalized signs have been furiously reported by both sides. Honestly. Can’t we all just get along?