CONTACTStaffCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2024 Pride Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
victim plans road trip
"
>
victim plans road trip
"
data-page-title="
Out Albany, N.Y., graduate student Erin Davies, whose Volkswagen Beetle was spray-painted with hate slogans on April 18, the Day of Silence, plans to drive the vandalized "Fag Bug" on a cross-country tour to promote tolerance.
Davies, 29, who came out as a lesbian 12 years ago, got many messages of support after the vandalism incident, which she figures was triggered by a rainbow sticker on the car.
At first, Davies said, she was mortified. She reported the crime to Albany police, who are investigating but say they have heard of no similar incidents. An insurance company claims adjuster--one of many people who advised her to remove the slurs from the car--estimated the cost of repairing cosmetic damages at $350.
"But even as I drove through my neighborhood in the rental car, I was stopped by friends and acquaintances and asked what I planned to do next," she told the Troy Record newspaper.
"I'm gonna rainbow my whole car out!" Davies, an arts education student at Russell Sage College, told Gay.com.
She decided to keep the slurs on the car to raise awareness. When people see it around town, she writes on her site, FagBug.com, they often leave letters of support on the dash.
In July, Davies plans to drive the 2002 Beetle across the country as a way to protest hate crimes. Along the way, she wants to get 1 million people--gay and straight--to put rainbow stickers on their own cars, figuring that if the symbol proliferates, its bearers will no longer be targeted as weak. She hopes to get coverage from MTV.
On Monday, Sage students and faculty staged a rally to support her.
"She is a very strong individual, for her to turn such a negative into a positive thing," Cheryl VanDemark, coordinator of education programs at Sage and Davies's adviser, told Albany's Metroland weekly.
"If it had happened to any typical individual, they would have been hesitant to drive it, but Erin is strong enough to know how other people think, to know how this might affect other people," VanDemark said.
Davies is not new to activism. After her undergraduate years in Baltimore, the Syracuse, N.Y., native worked with LGBT youths, working on a documentary about the Living Proof theater group.
"The kids each made a vision statement: 'I'm living proof that'...they had not committed suicide, or whatever. That they were still strong.
"This is the same response, but to a situation of mine," Davies said.
The Volkswagen vandalism was not the only backlash to this year's Day of Silence, an annual demonstration at schools and colleges nationwide to dramatize the discrimination and suffering young gays endure.
High schoolers in South San Francisco, Calif., held their Day of Silence on a campus that had been blanketed with hate graffiti over spring break. Rumors of violence forced a lockdown at a participating high school in New Castle, Ind., and in Jonesborough, Tenn., the gay teen organizer of a high school Day of Silence event was sent home, allegedly for his own safety. (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)
"Fag Bug" vandal
victim plans road trip
Want more breaking equality news & trending entertainment stories?
Check out our NEW 24/7 streaming service: the Advocate Channel!
Download the Advocate Channel App for your mobile phone and your favorite streaming device!
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
Here Are Our 2024 Election Predictions. Will They Come True?
November 07 2023 1:46 PM
Meet all 37 of the queer women in this season's WNBA
April 17 2024 11:24 AM
17 Celebs Who Are Out & Proud of Their Trans & Nonbinary Kids
November 30 2023 10:41 AM
Which State Is the Queerest? These Are the States With the Most LGBTQ+ People
December 11 2023 10:00 AM
These 27 Senate Hearing Room Gay Sex Jokes Are Truly Exquisite
December 17 2023 3:33 PM
10 Cheeky and Homoerotic Photos From Bob Mizer's Nude Films
November 18 2023 10:05 PM
42 Flaming Hot Photos From 2024's Australian Firefighters Calendar
November 10 2023 6:08 PM
These Are the 5 States With the Smallest Percentage of LGBTQ+ People
December 13 2023 9:15 AM
Here are the 15 gayest travel destinations in the world: report
March 26 2024 9:23 AM
Watch Now: Advocate Channel
Trending Stories & News
For more news and videos on advocatechannel.com, click here.
Trending Stories & News
For more news and videos on advocatechannel.com, click here.
Latest Stories
Pride
Yahoo FeedHow did the Biden administration just make health care fairer for LGBTQ+ people?
April 29 2024 1:54 PM
Candace Parker, queer WNBA legend, is retiring 'privately with the ones I love'
April 29 2024 12:42 PM
Tennessee parents beg judge not to release school shooter’s journals publicly
April 29 2024 11:58 AM
12 photos exploring the lives of Thailand’s Ladyboy community
April 29 2024 11:55 AM
Parent arrested as Ryan Walters called 'bully and bigot' at Oklahoma meeting
April 29 2024 10:15 AM
24 NYC Passover Pregame party pics that are a total gay mitzvah
April 27 2024 7:15 PM
Like a closeted gay man, Trump lives in fear of what David Pecker knows about him
April 27 2024 7:04 PM