Parents’ Perfect Response to Anti-Gay Graffiti on Their Garage
Graffiti taggers tried to shame one LGBT household, but this proud family turned an ugly gesture into a vision of inspiration. (Photo: Erin Kennedy DeLong/Facebook)
Waking up and finding a graffiti message spray-painted on the side of your home would make most of us feel angry, embarrassed, and even fearful.
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But when it happened to the DeLong family late last month, they found a way to turn an act of criminal vandalism into something powerful and inspiring.
On the morning of July 30, Erin Kennedy DeLong was awakened by her 17-year-old daughter, Miranda, and Miranda’s friend. The two brought DeLong outside of the family’s house in Villas, New Jersey, to show her something shocking: Someone had painted the words “I’m Gay” in big black letters across the front of their garage.
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“I was dumbfounded — I realized someone had committed a hate crime at my house,” DeLong tells Yahoo Parenting.
DeLong and her husband, Joe, may never know for sure who was responsible for the graffiti. But it appeared to target Miranda and the couple’s younger daughter, Emily, 14. That’s because both girls proudly identify as bisexual, something their parents are fully aware of and completely support.
The girls also have friends who identify as transgender and other friends who are gay, and they are over at the house often. “They know this is a safe place,” says DeLong. Whoever spray-painted the graffiti may have been trying to shame them, she adds.
Surprised and angered by the message on her garage door, DeLong called the local police and reported the graffiti, which officers took especially seriously because it was a bias crime, she says.
The police advised her to clean off the graffiti, which she and her family immediately did. (The DeLongs also have a 9-year-old son). “But when we cleaned the graffiti, some of the paint came off with it,” she says. “Some friends had suggested we repaint that part of the garage the colors of the rainbow or in glitter, and we thought the rainbow was a great idea.”
The next day, the DeLongs created their rainbow across the panels on the front of the garage — an enormous sign of LGBT pride and a statement of support for their daughters. “I’m their mom, I’m supposed to be their biggest supporter,” says Erin. As for the size of the rainbow panels, she adds, “my thinking is, go big or go home.”
The DeLongs have received lots of support for their rainbow-colored garage door, particularly on social media. Since posting a before and after photo of the garage on Stop-Homophobia.com’s Facebook page on August 3, the image has racked up more than 5,200 likes.
“Someone decided to vandalize our house last week, in an attempt to shame/harass our two bisexual daughters,” DeLong captioned the photo.
“We decided that some announcements deserve more than gray spray paint.”
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