Rainbow pride flag. (Image via iStockPhoto)

A resident of Gales Street NE came home on Sunday evening to find that her rainbow pride flag had been burned and discarded down the block.

Undaunted, Shawna Dinger rehung the flag, now with burn marks, one story higher, alongside a poster that reads, “To whoever tore down and burned my gay pride flag: I hung it up higher and prouder than before. It was a little low,” reports NBC 4.

“I don’t think violence and hate have any place here, so I just wanted all my neighbors and whoever did this to know that I’m not going to be afraid and be fearful. The way you fight hate is with love,” Dinger told WJLA.

Dinger tied the incident, her first issue since moving to the neighborhood near Miner Elementary five years ago, to “the Charlottesville weekend,” in which white supremacists gathered with Nazi and Confederate flags. One counterprotester, Heather Heyer, was killed and 19 more were injured when a self-identified Nazi drove into the crowd. Neighbors in Burleith also tied the appearance of anti-Semitic graffiti on a public building to the violence in Virginia.

Since the weekend, at least one Fox contributor has said that “the same people that are demanding that the Confederate flag comes down are the same people that are insisting that the rainbow flag goes up … These two flags represent the exact same thing: that certain people groups are not welcome here.”

But that comparison has largely been met with derision. “The Confederate flag is a symbol of white supremacy, and the pride flag is a symbol of visibility and inclusion designed specifically to counter such notions of oppression for a community long demonized in the shadows,” writes ThinkProgress.

Yup, remember that time when LGBT people enslaved all the straight people in America?? Oops, that never happened. https://t.co/cu1IGi72tH

— Progressive Blksmith (@ProgBlacksmith) August 16, 2017

It’s not the first time fringe arguments have surfaced to attack the rainbow pride flag. A man who has unsuccessfully tried to marry his laptop in at least three states to protest gay marriage is suing four members of Congress, including Virginia Congressman Don Beyer, for hanging the flag outside their Capitol Hill offices. Beyer called the suit “absurd.”

The flag means “hey, let’s live and let live,” Beyer told DCist. “There are incredible varieties of human experience. Let’s respect all of the ones that don’t hurt other people.”

MPD has classified the burnt flag as destruction of property, motivated by a sexual orientation bias. Members of the LGBT liaison unit responded to the incident and remain involved, per a department spokesperson.

That same afternoon, lifeguards at a D.C. public pool removed a man with a swastika tattoo “due to offensive language and inappropriate behavior,” said Department of Parks and Recreation Director Keith Anderson in a statement.

Bias-related crimes increased by 62 percent from 2015 to 2016 in D.C., police announced earlier this year.