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A group called Colorado Peoples Press claimed responsibility for spray-paitning "Their blood is on your hands" and "Five lives taken" on a sign at Focus's headquarters in Colorado Springs.
A sign at the Colorado Springs headquarters of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian group Focus on the Family was vandalized in protest of the mass shooting at Club Q in that city, a crime that left five people dead and nearly 20 injured.
Someone spray-painted "Their blood is on your hands" and "Five lives taken" on the sign at Focus's headquarters, The Denver Post reports. Officials at the organization wouldn't say exactly when the incident happened.
A group called Colorado Peoples Press claimed responsibility for the incident. "We chose to proceed with this action because of the incredible violence that Focus on the Family continues to perpetuate" against LGBTQ+ people, the group said in a press release shared on Twitter.
"These [five] individuals gathered at Club Q with friends and loved ones, new and old, to be in community and to grieve all the lives lost to transphobia," the group added. The shooting was an "act of hate," it said.
\u201cFocus on the family vandalized in response to the club q murders in Colorado Springs \u201cTHEIR BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS\nFIVE LIVES TAKEN\u201d\n\nA press release and report back from those who completed this direct action:\u201d— colorado peoples press (@colorado peoples press) 1669340204
Focus on the Family is known for anti-LGBTQ+ stances. Its website contains many "resources" condemning homosexuality, marriage equality, and transgender identity. In the 1990s, it "led the fundamentalist charge" for Amendment 2, a Colorado state constitutional amendment approved by voters that barred cities and counties in the state from adopting LGBTQ-inclusive antidiscrimination laws, the Southern Poverty Law Center notes. The amendment was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996 in the high court's first pro-LGBTQ+ ruling.
Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, issued a statement Friday in response to both the Club Q shooting and the defacing of its sign.
"The families of the five individuals killed in [the November 19] senseless attack are in our prayers," Daly said, according to the post. "We urge everyone to pray for peace and we also pray for the individual or group responsible for this mischievous and unwarranted defacing of our ministry's property."
"We recognize the community is hurting in the aftermath of the reckless and violent actions of a very disturbed individual," he further noted. "This is a time for prayer, grieving and healing, not vandalism and the spreading of hate."
