CARLSBAD -- A 28-year-old Carlsbad woman was arrested Thursday morning after she admitted to removing campaign signs opposing gay marriage from a Carlsbad Village Drive median.

Someone called Carlsbad police about 8:30 a.m. to report the theft of several signs supporting Proposition 8, a statewide ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage, police spokeswoman Lynn Diamond said.

Kimberly Erlenwein, who was there when police arrived, admitted to taking the signs and was arrested on suspicion of petty theft, Diamond said.

Erlenwein said later that she was on her way to get coffee Thursday when she saw half a block of the median covered in pro-Prop. 8 signs. They upset her enough that she left the coffee shop, walked into the median and took 11 of the 22 signs to her car, she said.

"To me, it's the equivalent of 22 Confederate flags in the median," Erlenwein said. "Laws should be written to protect people's rights, not to take them away."

Erlenwein, who married her wife in July after the state Supreme Court upheld same-sex marriage earlier this year, said she didn't know it was a crime to take the signs.

"I thought that, because the signs were on public property, I had as much right to take them down as the other person did to put them up," she said Thursday.

Erlenwein said she would not have removed the signs if she'd know the city had issued a permit for them to be placed in the median near Interstate 5.

Less than a week before Erlenwein's arrest, Carlsbad-based Prop. 8 supporters reported that most of the 100-plus signs they put up throughout the city had disappeared.

Police said Thursday they don't know whether Erlenwein was responsible for those thefts.

Erlenwein denied any involvement, saying she wasn't aware of the earlier incidents until the man who called the police Thursday accused her of additional thefts.

Laurie Haslam, a local leader of the pro-Prop. 8 group Coalition to Protect Marriage, said it was her signs that Erlenwein took. She said she had mixed feelings about Erlenwein's arrest.

"I'm sad that someone feels like they have to take our signs down, because one of the things that I love about our nation is we have freedom of speech," Haslam said."But I hope this arrest will show people we're serious."

Petty theft -- theft of property valued at $400 or less -- is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail, according to state law.

Contact staff writer Colleen Mensching at (760) 739-6675 or cmensching@nctimes.com.