This morning, at 10:00, about 200-300 people gathered to hear speeches (what, you forgot this was at a shul?) and see the beginning of the grafitti scrubbing. While the crowd was mostly Jewish, there were a fair number of women wearing crosses (and what one presumes to be their husbands or boyfriends) there, too. Rabbi Cohen had his own statement, and read a letter of support from Bethany Baptist Church. The general feeling was that the support of the Christians was extremely welcome, all the more so because nobody was going to blame them, anyway, for something like this.

I should also note that, despite the fact that the cleanup was initially posted to the ISIME mailing list, no doubt reaching a number of prominent local Muslims, none showed up. It's also worth noting that while the ADL is usually first in line to comment when somebody looked cross-eyed at a mosque, none of the local Muslim leaders seems to have been contacted by the local media, nor sought it out to condemn the spraypaint. Maybe they were out celebrating Purim.

Democratic State Sen. Ken Gordon spoke as well, plugging hate crimes legislation:

He compared scrawling "Elvis Lives" on a shul with writing "Hitler Lives," and drew the obvious conclusion. I've never been a big fan of hate crimes legislation. I'm still not. Intent to do something matters, so intent to intimidate matters. Unless you're planning to intimidate me with peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, bad jumpsuits, and swiveling hips, I would tend to agree there's a difference between the two. Treating them differently still doesn't require creating a class of thought crime.