Gay-Inclusive Display Vandalized at Calif. Church

A gay-inclusive Christmas display at a Claremont, Calif., church was vandalized over the weekend, and police are calling the incident a hate crime.

The display at Claremont United Methodist Church, located in a college town east of Los Angeles, featured silhouettes of three couples holding hands: one male couple, one female couple, and one male-female couple. Someone knocked over the figures of the gay couples sometime late Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning, TV station KTLA reports.

The vandalism is classified as a hate crime “because of the content of the artwork that was damaged and the fact that it was on a place of worship or at a church,” Claremont police lieutenant Mike Ciszek told the station.

The United Methodist Church, as a denomination, does not endorse same-sex marriage, but some churches, including the Claremont congregation, have joined the Reconciling Ministries Network, fighting for LGBT equality within United Methodism.