A man has engraved homophobic Bible verses on his fence after his neighbours displayed Pride flags outside of their home.
The man, from Seattle, engraved the anti-LGBT messages “Leviticus 20:13 & 18:22″ into his garden fence.
The man, who has not been named, is believed to have done it after his neighbour Shaun Shaffer put up a number of rainbow flags.
Shaffer shares his house with three other gay men and wished to celebrate Pride month.
Shaffer explained that they heard the neighbour muttering after putting the flags up but they weren’t sure why.
“We just finished putting up the flags, and we were taking the recycling out, and we saw our neighbour up against his fence. We heard Scratching.
“We couldn’t tell what he was doing. There was muttering,” Shaffer said.
Leviticus 20:13 says: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”
Leviticus 18:22 says: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.
Shaffer explained that he knew the meaning of Leviticus 20:13 and so he decided to report the incident to the police.
“By including the verse that said that gays should be put to death that’s what pushed it past the edge for me, I believe in the first amendment absolutely but I believe threats put out to the community should not be tolerated,” he said.
The Seattle police are investigating the hate crime but have said it may not be as straightforward as they had hoped since no one has heard from the man since he made the engraving.
Despite the hateful message, Shaffer said that he has one message for his neighbour: “I would say I love you as a person no matter what.”
Last month, police in Ireland launched a blasphemy probe against Stephen Fry for calling ‘God’ monstrous.
An Irish citizen complained to police after Fry appeared on The Meaning of Life and gave a powerful speech about what he would say to God if he were to meet him.
The probe has since been dropped because “not enough people” were offended by the speech.
