Vandalism Carries Anti-Gay Dimension
At first, Rusty Nelson didn’t notice the tiny message scrawled in black marker near the front door of the Peace and Justice Action League.
He was too busy looking at the broken panes of glass.
The vandal’s message was off to the side, in inch-high letters on dusty-red door trim: “Faggots Out.” The vandalism happened early Sunday - the day of the annual gay rights Pride March in downtown Spokane.
According to police, the message turns the incident from simple vandalism into a hate crime.
“I feel disappointed,” said Nelson, co-director of the league. “I know people are out there who have very strong feelings. There’s a lot of ignorance about gay and lesbian issues. It’s disappointing that somebody would do this as opposed to entering some kind of dialogue.”
The vandals shattered a large window pane and door pane in the front of the building at 224 S. Howard about 2:30 a.m. Sunday.
The carpet was layered in broken glass and a ripped-up poster with pictures of 10 prominent historical figures, like Virginia Woolf and Walt Whitman. The poster, which used to hang in the window, says: “Unfortunately, history has set the record a little too straight.”
Last week, the league set up a new display, for the Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays organization. “All are welcome here,” a sign proclaims. A flier promotes Gay Pride Week.
While the league is best known for opposing armed conflict and the death penalty, its building serves many purposes.
Gay organizations meet on the second floor. A 12-step group for recovering alcoholics meets in one room. Hands Off Washington, a gay rights group, uses another. So does a new group trying to set up a community center for gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
The vandalism frustrated activists, still fresh from the Pride March on Sunday.
“It’s not anything new,” said Gary Barlow, who called for tougher hate-crime laws. “It’s the same old homophobic attitude that gays and lesbians have faced for a long time.”
Police don’t have any leads in the case, said Lt. Scott Johnson. But he said the vandalism would fall under the hate crime category.
Without witnesses, “there’s no place to start,” Johnson said.
The Peace and Justice Action League wasn’t insured for the damage, estimated at about $2,000, co-director Nancy Nelson said.
Her husband, Rusty Nelson, taped up new messages on the plywood boarding up the broken windows. There’s a bumper sticker urging “Replace Amend Now,” a reference to embattled county coroner Dexter Amend. And there’s a sign on red construction paper saying the league “continues to support dignity and equal rights for persons of different sexuality, religion, race or ethnicity.”
“I just stuck that up there to say, ‘We’re still here,”’ Rusty Nelson said.
“And we’re not going away,” Nancy Nelson added.
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