The latest horror to arise as a direct consequence of an expensive, insulting and totally unnecessary postal survey on same-sex marriage is this, from Brisbane, where local marriage equality supporter Jessica Lette-Garvey awoke this morning to find swastikas spray-painted on her and her neighbours’ houses.
Lette-Garvey told PEDESTRIAN.TV that about five houses on her street had rainbow flags displayed on porches or fences as a show of support for the LGBTQIA community. She said that yesterday she and her husband had McGyver-ed their flag into an unreachable position hanging from their balcony, as it had kept getting torn off its original place on their fence.
In response, it appears, the flag removalists upped their game.
This morning I walked out the gate on my way to work and saw that we’d had swastikas spray painted on our fence.
I went to inspect our fellow flag flying neighbours (there’s about 5 in total on our street) and I saw that all of us had been targeted, with swastikas branding the flags, garage doors and fences.
Lette-Garvey said that the vandalism was a shock that seems completely out of place in her socially conscious inner-city suburb. Fortunately, neighbours and passersby have been nothing but supportive:
We live in a pretty progressive part of inner city Brisbane (Highgate Hill/Dutton Park), and it’s sent shock waves through the community. The response from neighbours and even the greater community has been overwhelmingly supportive and passionate. We’ve had people knocking on our door all day, offering their support. We just had a random girl knock on our door and give us a card. So despite the disgusting vitriol we started the day with, the day has finished with nothing but love and community spirit.
She also said that the police have been notified, and are taking the incident very seriously.
It’s impossible to imagine something like this – the defacing of personal property with signs of hatred and intolerance – happening, were it not for the entirely manufactured climate of antagonism caused by the marriage equality postal vote. Despite Malcolm Turnbull‘s calls for a respectful debate, we’ve seen rising violence, persecution of LGBTQIA Australians, and now this: blatant intimidation via Nazi imagery.
Brisbane, Dutton park area – people getting the message loud & clear from @LyleShelton, the archbishops & the rest of the ‘No’ campaign. pic.twitter.com/qOQIuIESAl
— Pauline Pantsdown (@PPantsdown) September 24, 2017
It’s enough to make you sick. While Lette-Garvey and her neighbours have made the best of it – turning one of the swastikas into a person sprinting to a post box with their “YES” vote – it’s still profoundly depressing to live in a cultural climate that encourages fuckwits of the highest order to take to their streets with a can of spraypaint and hate in their heart.
love this tbh
The end of this survey, and the end of inequality in Australia, can’t come bloody soon enough.
