Early in the morning of April 24th a group of angry queers smashed out the windows of Mars Hill Church in Southeast Portland. Mars Hill is notoriously anti-gay and anti-woman. Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill’s head pastor, has said that women need to be subservient to their husbands and that gay people are a cancer. His personal brand of Christianity crusades against the “feminization” of Jesus – we angry queers are not fans of Jesus, but we have a problem with anyone who has a problem with femmes.

This action was taken in memory of Mark Aguhar, a fierce queer/trans femme of color and artist from Chicago who killed herself a little over a month ago. We also hold in our hearts Paige Clay, a trans woman of color who was found murdered in Chicago on April 16th; Duanna Johnson, a black trans woman who was in all likelihood murdered by the police in 2008; Agnes Torres Sulca, Deoni Jones, and all other trans women who have been murdered by this cissexist, femmephobic, racist, and transmisogynistic society.

Churches are a major contributor to the culture that deems trans women of color to be disposable, as not worth keeping alive. Children who are forced to attend Mars Hill are indoctrinated in hateful dogma that teaches them their natural desires are an abomination that will damn them to hell. Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign does nothing in the here and now for queer kids trapped in abusive home or religious settings. And it never got better for Mark, Duanna, Paige, Agnes, Deoni, or the countless other trans women (especially brown trans women) who are regularly murdered.

When Mars Hill moved to town, so-called “representatives” of the queer “community” from the Q Center met with officials from the church in order to have dialog. What we have to say to the Q Center is this: FUCK YOU, you don’t represent us. You are disgusting traitors who prioritize social peace and the bourgeois aspirations of rich white cis gay people over the more pressing survival needs of more marginalized queers. Fuck dialog with people who want us dead, the only dialog we need with scum like Mars Hill is hammers through their windows.

We smashed Mars Hill because they make our lives miserable. We hope this small act of vengeance will strike some fear into the hearts of all of Mars Hill’s pastors, and warm the hearts of our friends and comrades (known or unknown). It may not get better, but we can certainly get even.

-some angry queers