Colorado Couple's Clever Response to Hate Crime Draws National Attention

Colorado couple's clever response to hate crime draws national attention
by John Moore (January 12, 2015)

Thanks to the power of social media, a local actor's response to an act of vandalism at his new apartment just days before Christmas has drawn cheers and national media attention.

Award-winning local actor, director and choreographer Matthew D. Peters' fiance, Sean White, returned to their Denver apartment on Dec. 21 to find a hateful epithet crudely scratched into their front door. But White decided to fight hate ... with funny. After sanding off the graffiti, he wrote the vandal a colorful note, and what he said in it has since drawn media attention from more than 25 news organizations and bloggers, including CNN and the Huffington Post. But things really took off when Glee star Jane Lynch (who appears at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House on Feb. 14) and Star Trek star George Takei got involved.

"We realized you can't fight hate with more hate," Peters told the DCPA NewsCenter for this video. "We were both initially upset, but that wasn't going to solve anything. Humor sometimes takes the power out of the other person."

Peters is currently performing in Fiddler on the Roof at BDT stage in Boulder. Last month, he earned a True West Award from the DCPA for his direction of Swing! at the Town Hall Arts Center.

Pictured below are before and after shots of the couple's door.

**Note: BWW has received permission to reprint this article, which originally appeared on Denver Center's website.

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