Carly Masiroff / The Clarion Call

Erin Davies has been the victim of discrimination for being a lesbian. However, she has not let that keep her down. Rather than let the phrases “fag” and “you are gay,” which were sprayed onto her car, make her feel bad about herself, she decided to keep them on her car and drive around the countryside, from Florida to California, from Tennessee to Canada, spreading the message that hate is wrong.

Davies visited Clarion University April 15, three days from the three-year anniversary of the date that her car was sprayed. Her visit to Clarion was sponsored by the local chapter of Allies, an organization of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and straight individuals who have come together to work for the presentation of human rights of all individuals, and the Clarion Young Democrats.

During her visit, she displayed her rainbow-colored, refurbished Volkswagen Beetle, dubbed the “Fagbug,” and presented a documentary about her yearlong journey driving around the country with the hateful words sprayed on her car.

Davies said the journey allowed her to uncover more serious stories. The documentary has aired at 35 film festivals.

“I’m really proud of it,” said Davies.

Davies said she decided not to paint over the graffiti on the car.

“It became a thing I couldn’t escape, so I decided to embrace it,” she said.

Erin Davies visited Clarion University to speak on hate crimes against the gay and lesbian community. (Carly Masiroff / The Clarion Call)

When her car was defaced, she was a graduate student at Russell Sage College in New York. After she resolved to keep the paint on her car, one of her friends bought the Web domain fagbug.com, and Davies created her own MySpace page. She decided to travel around the country and gauge people’s responses to the graffiti on her vehicle.

Over the course of her journey, she encountered sympathy and solidarity from those around her. However, she said she was dumped by her girlfriend and turned on by her friends. She also occasionally experienced negativity from those who view being gay as a sin. Despite this, she continued on, determined to share her message.

She traveled through 41 states, received 85,000 blog hits, made headlines in five countries, sold 1,000 Fagbug stickers, interviewed more than 500 people, spent 300 nights away from home, recorded 110 hours of footage, encountered 50 other unrelated hate crimes, spoke at 25 schools, participated in 11 gay pride events, had seven people attempt to remove the graffiti from her car and replaced four broken windows.

“I’ll look back and be really proud I did it,” she said.

Regarding future plans for the Fagbug, Davies said she hopes to someday cross paths with the person who did the graffiti to her car.

“I’m not betting on it, but I feel the probability is increased if I keep driving this,” said Davies. “I feel it’s inevitable our paths will cross.”

Davies’ car presently no longer sports the graffiti, but instead has a rainbow paint job she got shortly after completing her journey. The response has been more drastic, with more derogatory slurs hurled at her, but also many thumbs up from those who saw her. The new car has been subject to attacks with eggs, keys, garbage cans and people messing with her windshield wipers.

Davies said she likes the new paint job. “People will respect my car because it looks more businesslike,” she said.

The new appearance seems to attract more police attention. Davies said she had received two tickets for having lettering on her car larger than two inches, as well as many pullovers.

Davies said she hopes to eventually put the car into its own museum with a wall of notes placed on the Fagbug, as well as an interactive section for kids. In the museum, she said she also hopes to establish her own brewery.

“One gay beer stands out amongst the straight beers,” Davies said.

She’s also working on a children’s book, called “The Rainbow Car,” based on her experience.

“This was a wonderful grass-roots sort of approach to documentary making,” said Kelly Surgalski, a senior environmental biology major and president of the Clarion chapter of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance. “I thought it was great.”

“Hopefully, more people having Fagbug stickers will make the community more open to the gay and lesbian community,” Surgalski said.