Erin Davies is trying to spread the word about sexuality-related hate crimes, and she’s doing it in a way many people would consider atypical.

Davies and her car — a Volkswagen Bug — will sit in the Brickyard today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

But there’s something different about this Bug. It’s painted in the colors of the rainbow — or, at least, the colors of the Rainbow Flag — and the phrase “Fagbug” is sprawled across the side.

The story of her Bug, which was, until April 18, 2007, a normal car, and the reason for nationwide tour began when someone spray painted the word “fag” on her car at her home in Albany, N.Y.

When she saw it in the morning, she was “initially humiliated.” But when she went to the insurance company, asking them to immediately take the message off, she was told it would take five days for the company to process the claim and give her a quote.

“I said, the word ‘fag’ is right next to my face. I’m not going to drive it,” she said. “It’s humiliating. I kind of wanted to get away from it.”

So she insisted the company give her a rental car to drive until that claim arrived. Within those five days, though, word of the vandalism spread through her neighborhood to the point that she couldn’t complete a morning run without people stopping her to ask questions about it.

“I still couldn’t get away from this big dialogue that was created,” she said.

Soon afterward, she got a “gut feeling” to drive the car to Sage College, where she went to graduate school.

“I can’t really explain it,” she said. “There were signs that kept popping up, and I had been ignoring them before, but this time I decided to listen.”

In the hour that passed between 9 and 10 a.m., 50 people had called Public Safety to report the car — and its message — that was sitting in front of the admissions building.

“That day, it blew up,” she said.

The local news reported her story, and she decided to embrace the hype directed toward her and postpone removing the spray paint from her window. Her friend encouraged her to lengthen what she had planned to be a week-long event to one that lasted 58 days and took two months to plan.

“[I] decided to go to the general public,” she said. “I knew how I felt shocked and embarrassed by it, and I didn’t want it to just be my problem. Homophobia isn’t just my problem, it’s everybody’s problem.”

And while driving across 41 states in her statement, she learned that it really wasn’t just her problem. She had thought people would come up to her and tell her stories about their own instances of vandalism or verbal abuse.

She learned it was much more than that.

In her first two days, she learned of the deaths of two men that had happened within the two months prior to her visit.

“I didn’t think it would be like that,” she said.

Lack of knowledge about sexuality-oriented hate crimes isn’t something that was unique to Davies. Jonathan Merlini, a senior in mathematics and former co-president of AEGIS, said when he talks to students about homophobia, they feel it doesn’t exist on campus.

“Mostly because people don’t really talk about the issue,” he said.

At today’s event, he said he is worried people will deny something like what happened to Davies could happen here.

“The unfortunate thing is that it can, and it does,” he said.

Derogatory terms against the GLBT community cover the Free Expression Tunnel “all the time,” he said, and verbal hatred is common.

Merlini, a member of the West Campus Diversity Committee, said the committee recently conducted a survey using 10 percent of the residents of Bragaw, Lee and Sullivan to “gauge where we are on diversity issues and what our residents feel like they want to learn about, as well as what our residents need to learn about.”

Carrie Roberson, a senior in psychology and women’s and gender study, said her experience with hate crimes, though not directed toward her, inspired her to work the the Women’s and GLBT centers. Some of her friends, she said, and a family member “have been victims of homophobia.”

“It touches you to the point of wanting to go out there and do something about it,” she said, “because you see how much of their lives it is.”

Roberson said, in her experience, only a minority of students are open to GLBT students.

“That’s something that’s going to have to come later,” she said. “It’s taken us how long to accept Asian students and black students? It’s just one more step that we’re going to have to take to accept people who are gay or lesbian or bi-gender.”

And because of her reaction to the campus’ take on diversity, she said homophobia is something that needs to be addressed.

“People try to put a mask on it and turn a cheek to what’s going on,” she said. “Then when we’re outside of college, it’s going to create more problems. This is a good way to deal with what’s going on.”

Since homophobia, she said, results mainly from a misunderstanding about the GLBT community, she said all people need to do is take the time to research.

“There’s enough stuff in today’s society where, if you want to know about it, you can research it,” she said. “This is the day and time where you don’t have to be scared about your lifestyle.”

Davies will send her message to those in the Brickyard today. Through her car, she said she has turned a hate crime into a successful story.

“This shows how you can take a negative and turn it into something that’s positive,” she said. “The person who did this did it to shame and humiliate me. Turning it around turns it back on them. It probably really irritates them that positive things are happening for me from this.”