Rocks painted for Coming Out Week defaced again

Leah Reinert
sophomore, architecture

Last year, as many of you may remember, the Saluki Rainbow Network painted the rocks by the Recreation Center to celebrate Coming Out Week. Not even 24 hours later, they were vandalized and defaced. As a result, it brought on a lot of controversy.

Well, here we are one year later, and yet again, we went out and painted the rocks to celebrate Coming Out Week, and once again, the rocks were vandalized and defaced. We even went out of our way to paint them in the early hours of the morning so that they would stay as we painted them for at least the day.

Because no one would deface them in broad daylight right? That's what we thought, but we were wrong. They didn't even last 12 hours this time.

I am faced with many of the same questions again this year. Why can't our group have our chance to celebrate like everyone else? Why are people so ignorant and hateful that they have to try to step on our celebration of who we are?

We have put a lot of work into painting the rocks and also had a lot of fun doing it, and when you pass by 12 hours later to see such hatred, you have to wonder what kind of people would go out of their way to display this type of ignorance.

And once again, to whoever committed this heinous crime, this act of hate, we are still here. We are not going away. We will continue to paint the rocks when we are having our special weeks, as we have the right to do.

Leah Reinert

sophomore, architecture

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