In case the sudden influx of rainbow-themed products hasn't clued you in, it's LGBTQ Pride month.
To celebrate, officials in Lethbridge, Canada painted LGBTQ and transgender Pride flags on crosswalks in town. Less than a week after they were painted, though, the crosswalks were marred with skid marks, tar, and manure.
The group that puts on the city's Pride parade claim that this was a deliberate act of vandalism, stemming from homophobia. They posted photos of the crosswalks to their Facebook group saying, "These marks are blatantly deliberate, and nearly identical to a similar incident in Saskatoon earlier this month."
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The group considers the marks a "direct attack on the LGBTQ+ community and specifically the Transgender community," they wrote on Facebook, but said that it will "only propel us to work harder, be louder, and be prouder in our community."
Plenty of commenters, though, thought that the Pride group was being too sensitive, and that wear and tear is only natural for something that was painted on the road.
While it's certainly possible that the original wear wasn't rooted in hate, the crosswalks were later defaced again — this time with tar and manure. The Lethbridge police quickly responded to clean up the mess.
A statement from the police said that the crosswalks were "spread" with tar and manure, so it's hard to deny that it was a deliberate act of hate. Someone in Lethbridge clearly didn't like the city's support of LGBTQ people.
As the Pride group originally said, though, the hate didn't bring them down. Instead, the crosswalks were cleaned and Lethbridge held a first-ever Trans March walking across the crosswalks yesterday.
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