Kansas City church’s pride display vandalized

By Joseph Hennessy

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    KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KCTV) — A Kansas City, Missouri, church’s doors recognizing pride month were vandalized. It is the church’s second pride-related banner vandalized this year.

The Kansas City United Church of Christ put up the doors in the beginning of June. They were untouched and unbothered until Thursday in the middle of the night, when each door was covered in graffiti that spelled out “PERVS” and “REPENTANCE.”

“When we first put up the doors, we got a ton of positive feedback from that and people love to see it,” said Church Administrator Emily Stott.

The doors on the front lawn are meant to represent their beliefs about their community. “GOD’S DOORS ARE OPEN TO ALL,” is written out on the six doors.

The vandals wrote on the doors and tore a pride flag off the pole as well.

“We’re just going to keep getting louder as people keep trying to silence us. We’ll definitely be leaving the doors up as long as possible. We’re just going to keep trying to find ways to show the community how open we really are,” said Stott.

Pictures circulated online of people waking up to the new wording Thursday morning.

It reached Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas’ phone. He wrote on Twitter that it’s disgusting and it has no place in Kansas City. He asks for the public’s help in finding who did this by reaching out to himself and the police as they investigate.

Andria Mitra received a screenshot of his comments from a friend in Nevada who used to live in Kansas City. Mitra used to play on the grass outside the church with her cousins when she was growing up, as well. She wanted to see the damage in person after getting the notice from her friend from thousands of miles away.

“He’s still very connected to this community and it hurts him, as well,” said Mitra. “So, he sees something like this and passes it onto me in kind of a way that says, ‘What’s going on?’”

The church does not have cameras inside or outside the building, so they are asking for neighbors to help to find the person or people that did this. They have also filed a police report to help with the process.

As for moving forward, that’s what they will continue to do as signs, flags, and doors stay visible around the building at 205 W. 65th St.

“One thing that one of our neighbors said today was that, you know, we don’t put these things out for ourselves, we do it for others and so we’re going to keep doing that for others. No matter what happens to us,” said Stott.

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