I have no doubt this is of great embarassment to the local Bahais as it would never be tolerated by the Faith as a whole. It would be just for him to pay or work to make repairations for his individual and non-sanctioned actions. Regardless, I hope someone will scrub it off with or without his aid.

There is absolutely no justification for vandalizing any property, particularly religious property or property that has religious significance.

It seems that the person who did it was not particularly remorseful and seemed to think he had done no harm – in fact he seemed to think he’d done a good thing (or so I learned from email correspondence with a Bahá’í friend).

Last March I mentioned this issue on my blog (and I wasn’t as polite as you are in this post).

When I first came across the original post I could not believe my eyes!

Vandalizing religious property is not a legitimate way to teach any religion! I wonder if the person who did this would like to see the Bahá’í center cover with graffiti with propaganda to another religion!

But what shock me more were the comments I received from two of Baha’is who were condescending with the person who did this: “Maybe the person who did this had no bad intention…” “There are already so many graffiti there… why should we bother with one that has the word «bahai»”

People, including Baha’is, sometimes do not clearly apprehend the meaning that something holds for another. We have no right to deface any property or to put Faith’s name in front of people where it is not appropriate or acceptable to do so.

The Baha’i who defaced these pilgrimage sites should be required to pay all cleaning and repair and also receive fair warning that any similar acts could jeopardize his standing as a Baha’i.