That would be the Gays and Lesbians of Lancaster. Its pair of Adopt-A-Highway signs along a two-mile stretch of the busy Walnut Street access to Route 30 in the city and Manheim Township have been vandalized eight times in the last five years.

Usually, the word “SINNERS” is spray painted in hot pink across the group’s signs.

Undeterred, PennDOT scrubs or replaces the signs made by state prisoners at a cost to taxpayers of about $15 a pop.

Last year, the agency added a “PennDOT Thanks This 10-Year Participant” under the Gays and Lesbians of Lancaster sign.

Local PennDOT officials say the group is one of the best they have in the county in the statewide anti-littering campaign. They say they have received no complaints about the group and they have no intention of asking the group to step aside or change its sign.

“We don’t normally discriminate against anybody,” says Richard Ebeling, PennDOT’s manager of highway beautification programs. “Normally, you’re looking at people who are very civic minded.”

Leaders of Vision of Hope Metropolitan Community Church, the local Adopt-A-Highway group’s sponsor the last two years, vow to keep on making a difference.

“We believe it’s very important to be involved in the community and that’s one way of helping to give back,” says the Rev. Debbie Coggin, pastor of the Mountville church.

The church welcomes gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals to its congregation.

The church took over litter cleanup responsibilities two years ago when the previous sponsor, Lancaster-based Pink Triangle Coalition, disbanded. That group started cleaning the road in 1994.

The Rev. Jennifer Glass, of Honey Brook, the church’s interim associate pastor, says she “likes the opportunity to be able to clean the environment. It’s really important we respect our environment and the God-given creation.”

Coggin says she is not inclined to change the sign to mask the group’s identity.

“Part of that is just the freedom to be who we are,” she says. “It is a statement and we’re not ashamed of that.”

Two weekends ago, as they do four times a year, five to 10 members of the group convened on the state road, donned work gloves and orange safety vests issued by PennDOT and began scouring both sides of road, four miles of slow, bent-over walking in all.

When they finished, they had filled five large garbage bags with assorted litter. It was a relatively easy cleanup. Normally, it takes 10 bags to rid the roadway of unsightly trash.

“We’ve had people who have stopped and thanked us for doing it,” says Glass.

The vandalism and the group’s visible participation in the Adopt-A-Highway program has ignited a debate on Lancaster Newspapers’ online forum, Talkback (talkback.lancasteronline.com), that began July 18 and continues.

Many of the Internet posters offer support for the group and decry the acts of vandalism.

Some, however, condemn the group and its efforts.

PennDOT has never turned down a group for its Adopt-A-Highway program. However, it is holding its breath that a Ku Klux Klan chapter doesn’t try to sign up.

This year, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Missouri’s decision to bar KKK from participating in that state’s Adopt-A-Highway program.

In Montgomery County, the Delaware Valley Gay and Lesbian Alliance has patrolled a road for litter since 2004.

Meanwhile, local gays and lesbians pledge to continue to make a difference.

Says Coggin, “We are part of the community, and we share in the community. We are responsible for its upkeep just like everybody else.”