People living in a street in Bristol have responded to a homophobic attack on a gay couple’s rainbow doormat by going out and buying their own. Now the street in Bedminster is gradually filling with the colourful doormats, and the couple who were left shocked by the attack say they have been overwhelmed by support.
Susie Day and her partner moved to their new home in Bedminster recently, and put down the £6 Dunelm doormat down in time for this month’s Pride celebrations. But the doormat was soon stolen, so they went out and bought a new one, but this time glued it down so it couldn’t be taken.
Instead, whoever it was that objected to rainbow colours on a small doormat, returned with a can of black spray paint. Susie and her wife found their new doormat had been blacked out earlier this week.
Read next: Bristol Pride founder’s ‘emotional’ response to biggest ever Pride Day
She said the realisation that someone would go to such lengths over a multi-coloured doormat was sickening. “It felt really horrible and invasive,” she said. “It felt like we were a bit unsafe in our own home. We’d only recently moved here, and it felt personal. We weren’t sure if the theft was just random, but clearly someone didn’t like it and actually came back with a spray can.”
Susie asked her neighbours if they had experienced any other kind of vandalism and no one else had, which made her feel worse - but when the neighbours realised what had happened, they rallied round in support.
“Everyone was really shocked and we’ve had such great messages and people coming round to say how disgusted they were someone would do this. Everyone has said that’s not what this street is like, and one of our neighbours said they were going to get a rainbow doormat themselves, and now a lot of the other neighbours are doing the same, and have ordered them. So from just our rainbow doormat, there’s now going to be loads. That will be a really nice thing for us, to go out and walk down the street and see that there’s this support,” she added.
Susie also tweeted pictures of what happened, and the tweet went viral. “That meant we had friends and family calling us up asking if we were ok. The vast majority of responses to that across Twitter were really good and supportive. Obviously when it reaches a certain level, it attracts people who are not supportive, but 99.9 per cent of people have been supportive.”
Read next:
- Bristol's biggest letting agency pledges not to make tenants bid against each other
- Removal of two big billboards 'nothing to do with' campaign to remove them
To keep up-to-date with the latest South Bristol news, join our community of subscribers with my South Bristol newsletter here.
