CASPER — Casper officials say an anti-gay sign painted on a homeowner’s fence near a high school will be allowed to remain because there’s nothing the city can or should do about it.
Chris Trumbull painted the words “Leviticus 20:13, To be gay equals death” on his fence. Trumbull says the message is the Bible’s, not his.
“I put it up because society is not looking at the truth,” Trumbull said.
Trumbull’s property sits along a route between Roosevelt High School and the Boys & Girls Club where dozens of high school students pass every day.
The city asked Trumbull to remove the message, but he declined, said Shelley LeClere, Casper’s code-enforcement supervisor.
“We don’t have an ordinance that prohibits you from having graffiti. If you get caught painting, that’s one thing, but it doesn’t preclude you from putting up your own message,” she said. “It’s freedom of speech. What is vulgar to one person is not to the other person.”
Councilman Keith Goodenough, whose ward includes Trumbull’s property, said he didn’t think it was the city’s place to “draw the line” unless the speech incited a riot.
“As soon as you start limiting one thing, it inevitably leads to another and another, and I just think you have to rely on social pressure, peer pressure,” he said.
Trumbull’s passage is based on the Old Testament. The exact passage reads, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
Trumbull said his fence is the proper medium to express his disappointment in society.
“I’m not doing it to be spiteful. Gay people are bashing themselves,” Trumbull said.
It’s unlikely the Natrona County School District could take action against the fence owner, said Marty Wood, safe-schools coordinator for the district.
Wood said he expected educators to use Trumbull’s message as a teaching opportunity.
“I’d use it as a big learning piece about free speech and constitutional rights,” Wood said. “We live in a free country, so how do you handle disputes and differences of opinion?”
