Calgary pastor’s vehicle damaged overnight with hateful words and imagery

As Calgary's Mission 7 Ministries Pastor Derek Reimer sits behind bars for protesting against drag queen story hour, his van, which is sitting outside of his house, got vandalized on Tuesday morning.

On the side doors of the vehicle in red spray paint it read, “Jesus is a c***,” and on the front windshield there was an upside down cross. The upside down cross is known to be an anti-Christian and Satanic symbol.

Derek's neighbor was outside of his own house when he noticed the vandalism around 11:30am and immediately notified Derek Reimer's roommate who was home at the time.

I was able to call the woman who has taken over Derek's roles at Mission 7 Ministries while he is in prison to get more details. She explained that, “this van is used for the mission. It's like taking the vehicle out of service.”

She also said that while making the police report, she had to explain in detail what was written on the van and that it brought her to tears and was difficult to even say out loud. She said that this is a direct hate crime, and that it was meant to be a personal attack on Derek Reimer, but it’s not because it is not just hurting one person but each and every Christian. Since this phone call, the spray paint had been washed off by a family member of Derek’s.

Derek Reimer and his roommate have a security camera on their home which is supposedly facing near the area of where the vehicle was. As police do their investigation, we will have more details to come.

The anger and hate towards Pastor Derek Reimer from the left is no shocker. Derek began protesting against drag queen story hour with children a couple months ago consistently to the point in which the city decided to take action and put a cap on such protests. The City of Calgary and Mayor Jyoti Gondek introduced what is known as The Safe and Inclusive Access bylaw in which protesters of drag story times may face up to one year in prison and/or a 10k fine if found within 100m of the event.

Derek was initially arrested on March 2nd after being physically removed from a Reading With Royalty at Seton Public Library. He believes these events are damaging to children but has expressed that he “hates the sin and not the sinner”. Since then, he has been re-arrested a few times for breaking bail conditions which minimized his ability to protest or communicate with anyone from the LGBTQ+ community.

The Democracy Fund, a registered Canadian charity, is funding this legal battle for Pastor Derek. You can make a tax-deductible donation to The Democracy Fund by heading to SavePastorDerek.com. Those funds will help fight for religious freedom and the right to peaceful protest in Canada.