A church in Bean Blossom, Indiana was vandalized over the weekend with graffiti of “HEIL TRUMP”, “FAG CHURCH” and a swastika, which its pastor believes was meant to target the church’s inclusive message.
“At first I was a little disheartened,” Rev. Kelsey Hutto said, according to the Washington Post. “Saint David’s has been very active in our community and to find that is hurtful.”
Hutton told the post that she thought her church was targeted because of its inclusivity.
St. David’s Episcopal Church/Facebook
“We’re proud of being targeted for the reason that we were targeted for, at least in which we think we were targeted for, which is being inclusive,” she said.
So St. David’s Episcopal Church decided to keep the vandalism up.
“We believe that symbols are what you make of them,” Hutto told the Post. “And if we decide to look at these symbols as hate and be angry and frustrated, we’re focusing on the wrong issue. And so we’ve decided to leave them up as symbols of hope, whereas if anybody in the surrounding area — or even country — sees these and knows that we were targeted because we’re inclusive and they need a safe space, then they know that Saint David’s is a safe space.”
St. David’s Episcopal Church/Facebook
Bean Blossom is in Brown County, which the Indiana secretary of state recorded voted nearly two-to-one for Trump, who received 5,015 votes to Hillary Clinton’s 2,518.
The FBI reported Monday that hate crimes were up six percent overall in 2015 from the previous year. Hate crimes against Muslims in particular were up 67 percent from the previous year.
