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A city proclamation welcoming the anti-abortion group Operation Save America to the city and recognizing its "outstanding service to the City of New Orleans" was issued in error, according to an email this afternoon by a spokesman for Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

The story*was originally broken by Robert Morris of Uptown Messenger, who reported that the group ? a renamed version of the controversial 1980s organization Operation Rescue ? received an official welcome to the city*signed by Landrieu on the same day the group's members interrupted a service at*First Unitarian Universalist Church in Uptown New Orleans and*picketed the homes of people the group claims provide abortions. In online writings, Operation Save America called the Unitarian church the "synagogue of Satan."

A*Change.org petition*demanding the city rescind the proclamation congratulating Operation Save America had more than 800 signatures in less than 24 hours, and the story was picked up nationally by the satire-snark political site*Wonkette.

In an email this afternoon, Landrieu spokesman Tyler A. Gamble wrote:

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