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Incredible mom finds perfect response to anti-gay vandals
Miranda DeLong, aged 17, received a huge shock as she was returning home from work last week. It was 2am in the morning. She, a proud bi teen, was accompanied by her friend, who is transgender. There before them, scrawled in graffiti paint across her family’s garage were the large words: ‘I’m Gay’.
Miranda’s sister Emily is also an out bi teen.
Miranda immediately ran in to wake up mom Erin, and dad Joe. The family gathered outside to see the work of someone determined to shame them. Miranda and Emily were in a state of shock. Their mom and dad were furious.
Erin told me: ‘Our kids are our everything, and to see them hurt is worse than being hurt ourselves.’
No one needed to inform the DeLong family they were an LGBTI household.
‘We found out Miranda was bi when I read her diary when she was in the 8th grade. She was having some issues at school, and wasn’t talking. I confronted her and asked and then told her that she could love whoever she wanted, as long as she’s happy,’ Erin states.
‘Emily came out to us just this year. Her best friend is gay, and had “I’m gay” written on her hand. Emily wrote, “so am I” on her own. I didn’t react much and she thought I didn’t realize what it said until she asked for another girl to spend the night.
‘I asked if they were dating, and she ran out of the room. She thought her sister had “told” on her. I went up to her room and said we already knew from the writing on her hand.
‘She asked why we didn’t react, and I said because I wouldn’t have overreacted if she said she was straight, why overreact for saying she was gay, to which she replied, ‘I like boys, too.’ And I told her the same thing we told her sister: Please love who you want and be happy.’
The same statement Emily used to come out, the statement that allowed her mom to lovingly embrace who she is, was now being used against the family.
But the bullies lost.
‘We decided to paint,’ Erin declares. ‘We decided some announcements deserve more than gray spray paint.’ Paint, they did. Their garage now sports the largest rainbow flag image for miles around.
As the story has spread, some have asked why the broader LGBTI image was used rather than the specific bi image.
Thinking of Miranda’s transgender friend who also experienced the shock of the event, Erin answers: ‘We made it rainbow so we could include all sexualities, we have many LGBTI friends that visit our house and we wanted them to all feel accepted. It was a way to support them all.’
The DeLong family won support around the world through the Stop Homophobia site where the image of their newly painted garage first appeared.
One person to applaud their creativity was artist and designer Aldo Gatt, who had experienced the same thing.
‘What an amazing response. I had the same done to my house back in 2009. Someone broke in and sprayed homophobic threats on the walls. It was devastating to think anyone would have such hatred in them,’ he wrote.
The vandals obviously knew that a gay man had just purchased the dwelling, which had been built in the16th century and scrawled their warning across the home chapel’s wall.
‘The house is 450 years old and has historic marine graffiti on the walls that were vandalized. Thankfully a restorer acquaintance of mine helped me with advice on how to remove the graffiti without damaging the walls,’ Gatt reports.
Like the DeLongs, he realized an artistic retaliation was better than an angry one. The once vandalized wall is now a thing of beauty in the vacation home.
We are living in a time where LGBTI progress is inspiring homophobic anger. The haters are in the mood to harm and humiliate. Our work to change public attitudes is not over.
And, as these homeowners show, our greatest weapon is not anger or revenge, it’s our creativity.
The post Incredible mom finds perfect response to anti-gay vandals appeared first on Gay Star News.
Rob Watson
www.gaystarnews.com/article/incredible-mom-finds-perfect-response-to-anti-gay-vandals/
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