Spokane City Council condemns hate crimes after string of anti-LGBTQ+ vandalism

The Spokane City Council voted unanimously Monday to condemn bigoted groups and hate crimes in the wake of a recent string of targeted vandalism of LGBTQ+ symbols and organizations.

The resolution was a late addition to Monday’s agenda sponsored by Councilmen Zack Zappone and Ryan Oelrich.

“There appears to be a rise of overt attacks and bigotry on the LGBTQ community, which is a trend that we’re seeing nationally,” Zappone said Monday. “I think that this resolution shows that the City Council is against those sorts of acts of hatred and bigotry.”

The resolution points to instances of vandalism, including those targeting local Jewish institutions, educational facilities, racial justice murals, LGBTQ+ symbols and minority-owned businesses in recent years. Zappone and Oelrich spoke directly to damage done in recent days to rainbow crosswalks in the city and an LGBTQ+ youth center on South Perry Street.

The vote was largely symbolic, affirming that residents should live in a city free from discrimination and encouraging thorough investigations of reported hate crimes without modifying city law. The resolution did have some marginal actionable items, including changing the city’s lobbying agenda to the state legislature to ask for a statewide hate crime hotline and to make a hate crime on public property a felony, as it is on private property.

The Spokane County Human Rights Task Force maintains a hotline already. Zappone encouraged residents to report hate crimes to that organization.

Councilman Jonathan Bingle wavered on whether to support the resolution, questioning whether it condemned not just physical acts such as vandalism or violent hate crimes, but also hate speech, as was mentioned in the title of the resolution but did not appear elsewhere in the language adopted Monday.

“This would change my vote on this, if you consider it to be hate speech to say that, for example, a man is a man and a woman is a woman,” Bingle said, referring to a line of rhetoric delegitimizing transgender identities.

Policy Director Christopher Wright clarified that hate speech as defined by state law only includes speech that could be reasonably considered threatening or inciting violence. Bingle continued to question whether his prior example could be construed as threatening and called to remove language around hate speech from the resolution. Cathcart was the only other vote in favor of this modification, and the resolution passed without any changes.

Several residents spoke in opposition of the resolution, arguing that the City Council recently targeted Christians with its denunciation of Mayor Nadine Woodward’s appearance at a Christian nationalist event, while some others argued that they have a right to their religiously based beliefs of LGBTQ+ people and issues.