Here’s the Amazing Response to Rainbow Flags Being Stolen From This LGBT-Friendly Church

It all started last summer, when thieves stole a rainbow flag from the First Church Congregational in Rochester, N.H., during the week of Fourth of July.

Rev. Eliza Buchakjian-Tweedy, the first woman to be senior pastor at First Church, hung another one and went on with her life.

Established in 1731, the First Church Congregational in Rochester decided in 2002 to be “open and approving,” meaning it would welcome LGBT members.

The next day, the church replaced the flag. It disappeared the following evening.Then, on July 18 of this year, the flag was stolen again, the Rochester Times reported.

Buchakjian-Tweedy reported the crime to local police. Then she put out the word on Facebook and to friends and other clergy that (possibly anti-LGBT) thieves were stealing rainbow flags.

The response has been “extraordinary,” Buchakjian-Tweedy told the Rochester Times. Supporters sent First Church dozens of rainbow flags, garlands, and banners.

So what should the church do with all the rainbow stuff it’s collecting?

Buchakjian-Tweedy says she plans to cover the church with flags, and she will not let these petty crimes intimidate her, according to an email posted on Mombian, a blog for lesbian mothers.

“We are expecting vandalism. But this is more important. Being a safe place, including our conviction that God’s love encompasses all people—no asterisks, no exceptions—is worth a little annoyance,” she wrote.

By hanging the flags, “we are saying to the LGBT community, who are often silenced and bullied and told they are unlovable in the eyes of God, that they are worthy of love and are beloved,” Buchakjian-Tweedy told the Rochester Times. “The flag is for kids who are alone and might attempt suicide and for people who have been rejected by their families and their churches.”

The Rochester Times also published an op-ed on July 31 condemning the theft and saying that whomever is responsible is “guilty of hate crimes and of besmirching the Constitution of the United States...and is very much at odds with the Live Free or Die philosophy that is a mark of the true New Hampshire resident.” 

First Church is a United Church of Christ, which has encouraged "welcome, inclusion and justice" for LGBT people since 1969. Earlier this year, the church sued North Carolina over its ban on same-sex marriage.