DENVER — It was a message of hate delivered just in time for the holidays.
Sean White and his partner, Mathew Peters, discovered someone had scratched the word “faggots’ into the front door of their Denver apartment, “it was actually carved into the door with a knife or key,” White said, “I was so mad I was shaking.”
White said he left his home for about an hour last Sunday evening and returned to find the anti-gay graffiti.
He texted an image to his partner, immediately, “It was just kind of shocking that this kind of thing still happens in 2014,” Peters said.
White told FOX 31 Denver Investigative reporter Heidi Hemmat, “someone’s goal was probably to make us feel ashamed.”
But rather than shame, White felt empowered and a put a message of his own. It said:
“To the individual who scrawled the word “faggots” into our door.
We regret to inform you that you completely failed to use glitter paint and/or sequins, your work looked rushed, and your handwriting was positively atrocious.
It is for these reasons that we have removed your work from our door with sandpaper.
Fabulously yours, the gays in apt. 611.
White and Peters posted the images on their Facebook pages and it exploded, shared hundreds of times and viewed by million all across the world.
“This is so far beyond anything we thought was going to happen,” Peters said. For the couple, it was the best possible outcome.
The Denver apartment building is monitored by video surveillance but there are no cameras in the hallways.
The couple reported the crime to the Denver police department, but without video evidence, the person who did it, might never get caught.
The couple said in the end, the vandal or vandals taught them a valuable lesson, “you can’t fight hate with hate,” Peters said, “you can fight back with love.”
