This Openly Gay Priest Had The Perfect Response To Vandals Who Stole His Church’s Pride Flags

“How dare they try and silence who we are and what we believe."

From: NewNowNext

 An openly gay Church of England priest is refusing to cower in the face of vandals who tore down the LGBT and transgender pride flags from his church in north London.

 Father Andrew Foreshew-Cain, vicar of the St. Mary With All Souls church in Kilburn, discovered the flags had been removed early Monday morning.

The priest told BuzzFeed that they’d been flying just hours before as he led the final Sunday services at his progressive, pro-LGBT church.

“They must have brought a ladder because it’s quite high,” he remarked. “They’d have needed to get up there to cut the ropes and wheel it down. It’s not an accident, they haven’t blown away; it’s been done deliberately.”

Though he admits to feeling stunned when he first noticed the flags were gone, his feelings quickly turned to anger.

“How dare they try and silence who we are and what we believe and think that’s an acceptable response,” he commented. “Engage in debate all you like, tell me I’m wrong to my face all you like, but don’t vandalize my church.”

The Father later took to Twitter to express his unwillingness to bend to anti-LGBT naysayers.

Someone has cut down the rainbow & Trans flags from our Church over night. They wd have needed a 10ft ladder, so this is a deliberate attack pic.twitter.com/h4xAoPlTGV

— Andrew Foreshew-Cain (@churchnw6) October 3, 2016

Just to say to the fellow Christians who did this, we will put them back, and you cannot silence us. No surrender pic.twitter.com/IGltBGuxJK

— Andrew Foreshew-Cain (@churchnw6) October 3, 2016

Foreshew-Cain’s inclusive Anglican church began flying the LGBT pride flag in early 2015, adding the transgender pride flag this past March.

“Mostly the reaction has been enormously positive, and when we put the flags up photographs were taken and were retweeted a lot with a lot of very positive comments,” he said. “I’ve not had much negative responses at all.”

That’s what’s made this case of vandalism so surprising and troubling.

“It’s an attempt to bully and silence,” he explained. “It’s unsettling; it makes you feel…unsafe.”

Foreshew-Cain (on the right, in the picture left) is no stranger to feeling unsafe; as the first practicing vicar to marry another man, he’s faced incessant bullying from homophobic Christians.

“I’ve been attacked on the street,” he said, “I’ve been spat at, I regularly get called names. Only a few weeks ago I was walking along the street in a dog collar with a friend and got homophobic abuse shouted at me. They used the word ‘poofter.’”

In spite of this recent hiccup, Foreshew-Cain planed to go ahead with the first London meeting of Open Table, a new worship service “for queer Christians, led by queer Christians.” The initiative began in Liverpool and has since spread throughout the UK.

“My personal motto is ‘No surrender’,” he said. “Gay and lesbian people are not going away in the church. You can cut our flags down, you can refuse to licence us as priests, you can refuse to ordain us as clergy, but we’re already in the church. Get over it. We’re not going anywhere.”