Letter From Adam Ebbin
Member, Virginia House of Delgates
By Metro Weekly Contributor
on
June 9, 2004
In one of the stranger crime sprees of Pride Month, a masked man on an electric unicycle is reportedly stealing Pride flags across Longmont, Colorado.
Since Memorial Day weekend -- just ahead of Pride Month -- the man has vandalized homes by bending flagpoles and tearing down flags.
Sheryl Colaur, one of the victims, told the Longmont Daily Times-Call that at least 10 -- and possibly as many as 15 -- of her neighbors in Longmont's Harvest Junction Village neighborhood have had their Pride flags stolen, allegedly by the same man.
A Henrico County Circuit Court judge has partially overturned Virginia's ban on conversion therapy by signing a June consent decree with Attorney General Jason Miyares and the Virginia Department of Health Professions.
The decree stems from a lawsuit by Front Royal counselors John and Janet Raymond and allows licensed professionals to conduct "talk therapy" aimed at convincing minors to "change" or suppress feelings related to their sexual orientation or gender identity, provided they use only verbal methods and avoid physical conversion practices.
An unknown vandal smashed the plexiglass sign outside Washington Plaza Baptist Church in Reston, Virginia, sometime before Sunday, June 15, targeting a message that read "God is Love. Love is Love. Celebrate Pride."
A member of the congregation was the first to notice the shattered singn and missing letters.
"Whatever was used to break the plexiglass on the sign was right over the word pride," Michelle Nickens, pastor of Washington Plaza Baptist Church, told the Reston edition of local news site Patch. "They actually damaged it so that the little track that the letters slid into was damaged. We could not even put the letters back up."
