Hartford church's Pride walkway vandalized with hate speech

Police in Hartford are investigating vandalism to the walkway of Immanuel Congregational Church.

The walkway has been painted rainbow colors for the last three years, and the artist said nothing has ever happened before. But now, days before the city’s Pride celebration, it was defaced with a hateful slur.

“Both sadness and anger,” Rev. Jay Terbush said he feels. “I’m sad that there’s someone, that there’s hatred and prejudice in the world, and then I’m angry because someone desecrated something that’s really important to us as a church.”

Terbush said the incident wasn’t caught on camera and they may never know who did it. He broke the news to the congregation on Sunday morning.

“What I said to them was, ‘Let’s pray for this person that did this because God loves them, and we should love them too, even though we’re angry at what they did.’”

He said the church is open and affirming, and that’s what the walkway represents to them.

“It’s a visual representation of those values, and says to people, no matter who you are, no matter where you are in your life journey, you’re welcome,” he said. “You can come in through this way into the sanctuary and God will accept you, and we accept you.”

The original artist returned to the church on Wednesday morning to paint over the writing.

“This is the first time that it’s had any graffiti on it,” artist Louisa Barton Duguay said. “It’s just so unnecessary. I don’t know why people feel like they can’t accept everyone, and they can’t just be who they are, and let everybody be who they are.”

The pastor said it’s given the church an opportunity to stand up to hate.

“It’s a terrible thing that’s happened, and yet it’s also giving us the opportunity to say, 'we’re not gonna be intimidated, we’re not gonna go back, we’re not gonna let this stop us,'" he said. “When we’ve had a Black Lives Matter banner pulled down or destroyed, we just said 'okay, we’ll buy another one and put it up.' Because we believe that if you give in to hate, if you become intimidated, if you mute your voice, then you’re not living out who you are.”

The vandalism comes days before the Hartford Pride celebration on Saturday.

“It really is a gut punch when something like this happens,” said Johanna Schubert, co-chair of West Hartford Pride. “When rhetoric turns into action and we see vandalism like this, it makes us feel scared, separate and alone, and we shouldn’t feel that way.”

Schubert, who co-chairs West Hartford’s Pride celebration, said they received threats before their event back in June.

“We have definitely noticed an uptick in threats over social media, and just an overall unfriendly atmosphere out in the world,” she said.

Hartford police said Wednesday they haven’t received any threats, and continue to investigate this vandalism.

Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said he was deeply saddened by it, but said Pride will still be celebrated with “all of the enthusiasm and love that we always do.”

“It’s a powerful reminder that in so many parts of this country, unfortunately there are people who are moving backwards and trying to pull us backwards in time,” Arulampalam said. “We don’t have time for that in the city of Hartford. We are gonna continue to push the city forward and we are gonna continue to build a more inclusive and brighter and more welcoming place for everybody.”