The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church is one of the most hated groups in America due to their harassment not only of gay people but of the grieving, of the dead families of troops killed in battle and even the victims of tragedies such as the Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre — but the much maligned protest organization is getting a new set of neighbors with a rainbow, gay pride house.
The Westboro Baptist Church is headquartered in Topeka, Kansas, where “roving do-gooder” Aaron Jackson, 31, has purchased a home — a home he’s painting in a gay pride rainbow theme as we speak.
Jackson was profiled today by Gawker , discussing his decision to purchase the $80,000-or-so home for sale across the Westboro Baptist Church last year, and to turn it into a gay rights center. He explains to the site:
“It hit me right away … Huh. That would be interesting to own a house across from the Westboro Baptist Church and turn it into something.’ And then, within five seconds: ‘And I’ll paint it the color of the pride flag.’ Perfect.”
Jackson explains the idea to put a rainbow house across from the Westboro Baptist Church compound was inspired by the idea of “standing up to bigotry and promoting equality.”
But what he didn’t get is a discount for his unsavory neighbors, and the Westboro Baptist Church’s new rainbow view came at the same cost as a house in a less-hateful part of town. Jackson says:
“I find that if you have a hate group in front of your home, that should bring the price of your home down just a little bit … Unfortunately the gentleman that was selling the house, he didn’t seem to agree with me … What he did not know, where he had me, was I needed this home. I had to have this house. There was no way around it.”
Davis Hammet is a friend of Jackson’s also working on painting the Westboro Baptist Church neighbor home in a fabulous rainbow, and he says the main idea is to be the opposite of the WBC — “to take the negative attention and try to spin it into something positive.”
