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Rainbow-flag bearing vandal sprays “anti-gay cult” onto churches in the dead of night
Photo #7688 November 13 2025, 08:15

A person with a bizarre rainbow flag is allegedly spray-painting anti-Christian messages onto churches in New York City.

The New York Police Department’s (NYPD) Hate Crimes Task Force says that three churches in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens fell victim to anti-Christian graffiti on the night of October 5. The NYPD released an image of a suspect who approached the Refuge Church of Christ around 1:40 a.m. while carrying a rainbow flag.

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The suspect allegedly sprayed “anti-gay cult” onto the wall of the church before getting on a CitiBike and leaving.

They then went to the City of Oasis Church of Deliverance and spray-painted another message four minutes later, before getting back on their CitiBike and heading to the St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Church and spraying more anti-Christian messages onto it, 15 minutes later. They painted “Welcome cult members” on the sidewalk there and then spray-painted the faces of two religious statues on the church’s property.

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The New York Daily News notes that St. Mary’s Star of the Sea is a Catholic church, while the other two churches are Pentecostal.

NYPD released security camera images of the suspect, who was carrying an odd rainbow flag with at least seven stripes. The standard rainbow flag that appears at Pride events across the country has six stripes – purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. But this person’s flag had an extra pink stripe below the red stripe and possibly an extra dark blue stripe between the blue and purple stripes, which would make it an eight-striped flag.

The original Pride flag, developed by Gilbert Baker in the 1970s, also had eight stripes before the pink stripe was dropped due to difficulty in procuring pink dye. Later, the extra blue stripe was removed to have a flag with an even number of stripes.

A reward of up to $3,500 is being offered for information leading to an arrest in this case.

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