A new billboard at a busy east-side intersection in Colorado Springs is meant to send a powerful message about family and love to same-sex couples – and everyone living and working in a city identified as a “headquarters of hate” by the California group sponsoring the sign.
The billboard, at the corner of East Platte Avenue and Chelton Road, shows two men in a romantic embrace, and says, “Our families are stronger than your hate.” It’s part of a nationwide campaign meant to counter the messages of America’s “most notorious anti-LGBTQ” organizations in the cities where they are headquartered, according to Hornet, a San Francisco-based group that describes itself as the world’s premier gay social network.
“We wanted to put them in places where people might need to hear those messages the most,” said Hornet president Sean Howell, whose company’s billboards also are intended to be a reminder to local civic and faith leaders that – whatever occurs on political and legislative fronts – Hornet’s 20 million global users (and the gay and lesbian community at large) “will continue to thrive and resist attempts by any groups to reverse the progress made over the last decades.”
The billboard campaign began in early June – LGBT Pride Month – with an installation in Washington D.C., home of conservative Christian lobbying group Family Research Council, and will expand next to Topeka, Kan., headquarters of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church.
Billboard locations were chosen by Hornet based on information from groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose “Hate Map” lists the Springs as home to two groups considered anti-LGBT, Family Research Institute and The Pray in Jesus Name Project. The latter is run by evangelical activist and former Colorado state Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt, a firebrand of the anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage movements.
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