Peace Out Back In

Remember this story about the couple who were being fined by their homeowners’ association for hanging a peace wreath? Well, not only have the fines been dropped, but the entire association board has resigned and now the whole town is peacing it up big time.

Two board members have disconnected their telephones, apparently to escape the waves of callers asking what the board could have been thinking, residents said. The third board member, with a working phone, did not return a call for comment.

…[T]here are now more peace symbols in Pagosa Springs, a town of 1,700 people 200 miles southwest of Denver, than probably ever in its history.

On Tuesday morning, 20 people marched through the center carrying peace signs and then stomped a giant peace sign in the snow perhaps 300 feet across on a soccer field, where it could be easily seen.

…Town Manager Mark Garcia said Pagosa Springs was building its own peace wreath, too. Mr. Garcia said it would be finished by late Tuesday and installed on a bell tower in the center of town.

Awesome. And stepping in to “help form an interim homeowners’ association” is a former association president who also happens to be a veteran willing to “fight for anyone’s right to free speech, peace symbols included.”

Fuck how I love it when right-wing intolerance backfires so spectacularly.

(Thanks to Shaker Tanya for passing along the update.)