Brookline, Massachusetts police are investigating the burning of a transgender flag outside the United Parish Church near Coolidge Corner late last month, according to the Boston Globe.
“The hate and violence shown on our lawn has no place in the kind of world that Jesus imagined and God created. No act of vandalism will deter us from expressing Christ’s love as fully as possible in order to overcome this kind of hatred,” reads a statement from the church.
Reports the Globe:
The incident occurred at United Parish, near Coolidge Corner. The flag was found damaged on Aug. 25 after being on display on the building’s front lawn, the church said in a Facebook post on Saturday.
Brookline police detectives are investigating the incident as a hate crime, a department spokesman said in a statement to the Boston Globe. Police believe that the flag burning took place sometime between 10 p.m. on Aug. 25 and 9 a.m. on Aug. 26.
No arrests have been made.
Representatives from United Parish said in the post that they are determined to overcome the attack, and that it will not dissuade them from displaying inclusive imagery in the future.
Senior Pastor Kent French, in an interview with the Globe, said that he did not know of any act of vandalism like this at the church before.
United Parish is planning to replace the flag with another transgender pride flag, to be displayed in a less accessible location, French added.
“I feel like my job … is to overcome hate with love,” French told the paper. “And, you know, if someone does something like this anonymously, we don’t have an opportunity to do that directly. Our prayer was to pray in general for that and the way we see it all over the world, but certainly we would invite dialogue with someone who has those feelings.”
Read the complete Boston Globe article here.
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