Hardewijk's rainbow crossing vandalized with "religious insanity"

The rainbow crosswalk in Hardewijk was vandalized. A seemingly religious message was found spray painted on the crossing on Wednesday morning. "Sodom and Gomorrah are still there as a warning example", the text read, translated from Dutch. And: "Choose life."

Martijn Pijnenburg, D66 leader in Hardewijk, posted photos of the vandalism on Twitter "The rainbow crosswalk in Hardewijk smeared with religious insanity", he tweeted. "In one word: disgusting."

The municipality removed the text later on Wednesday morning. 

The rainbow crossing was painted in November last year, at the initiative of Menno Doppenberg, VVD city councilor in Hardewijk-Hierden, De Stentor reports. The intent behind the crossing is to show that Hardewijk welcomes everyone, regardless of religion, origin or sexual preference.

Doppenberg called the vandalism "very childish", speaking to the newspaper. "It is very annoying that the symbol of 'everyone is welcome' is vandalized", he said. "But especially for the Christian LGBT people, who already find it difficult to come out of the closet, something like this can make it even more difficult to talk about.."

Whether or not the vandalism has anything to do with religion, remains to be seen, Doppenberg said. "It can also just be someone who wants to stir up unrest." He hopes that the perpetrator or perpetrators will be caught.