A Portland woman said she has struggled to understand why someone mailed an anonymous homophophic letter to her home — one of several received by area residents last week that police are calling a hate crime.
She and her partner, who moved here in 2019, aren’t exactly obvious targets. They identify as queer but don’t outwardly display LGBTQ signs or emblems on their house or car, while neighbors who post Pride emblems publicly did not receive hate mail.
“We’re pretty freaked out,” said the woman, who didn’t want to be identified.
The Brighton Avenue victim was one of at least seven in Portland and South Portland who received targeted anti-LGBTQ letters last week, according to police. The letters included a homophobic death threat and a rendering of the Satanic Temple logo over a rainbow Pride flag.
Police are investigating the letters as criminal terrorizing, which rises to the level of a hate crime. There were 19 federal hate crimes in Maine in 2019, seven of those related to sexual orientation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.