The story about the Topeka, Kansas neighborhood in which the Westboro Baptist Church nut-job family lives, along with the recent addition of a fabulous color combo across the street, isn’t “new” news, but I like rainbows and bright colors and thought this would look great on my blog. Have you seen this story?
Six months ago, Aaron Jackson, a 31-year-old community college dropout, bought a house that was for sale across from the horrid Westboro Baptist Church. But rather than move into a house that would net him THE Worst. Neighbors. EVER., Jackson is using the home as a base for gay rights and equality advocacy. Just to make ?sure that 1) Westboro got the memo, and 2) it got a lot of attention, Jackson’s organization – Planting Peace – painted the house in the hues of the rainbow flag.
Jackson’s not just trying to make a point to the Westboro nuts; this is what he does. Some of his past projects have included opening?orphanages?in India and Haiti and buying endangered rain forest land in Peru. The Planting Peace project has a simple but profound goal: de-worm every child in Guatemala. I mean . . . who thinks about worms, right? We’re acutely aware of the painful poverty in the world, but how often do we actually probe down to this level and think of something like worms? This is what poverty is. It’s not just about not having enough food or lacking health insurance.
Equality drew Jackson’s attention when he read about Josef Miles, the 9-year-old Topeka boy who protested Westboro last year with a handmade sign that said “God Hates No One.” The incident was timely because Jackson had been seeking a way to support anti-bullying and equality.
?”I’ve been accused in the past of being all over the place, and they’re probably right on some level,” Jackson told Gawker writer Sam Eifling via a phone interview. “Right now we are standing up to bigotry and promoting equality.”
His biggest concern involving the equality movement is the young gay people who are being impacted by bigotry and gay hate.
“The reason I haven’t gotten into the gay rights activism is because, in a sense, it’s almost silly — it’s 2013. Are we really still in this position? It just seems ludicrous,” he said. “But it is a real issue and kids are killing themselves. I’ve wanted to do something, and I knew when I saw that house for sale that it all came together. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a little crazy and there’s no red tape in my charity. When I want to do something, I do it.”?(Huffington Post)
He randomly found the church’s address – 3701 SW 12th St. in Topeka – on Google Maps and stumbled onto the house for sale on a virtual stroll around the block.
“I didn’t know anything about the church or where they were located, but that story kept popping up. And one night I wondered, Where is this church? I got on Google Earth, and I was ‘walking down the road,’ and I did a 360 view. And I saw a ‘For Sale’ sign sitting in the front yard of a house. Right away it hit me, oh my gosh, I could buy a house in front of the WBC! And immediately I thought: And I’m going to paint that thing the color of the pride flag.” (Huffington Post)
The first house he found had already sold, but the seeds of an idea had been planted. Jackson found another house a couple of doors down from the Westboro compound and bought it for?approximately?80,000.
“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,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately the gentleman that was selling the house didn’t seem to agree with me.” The guy wouldn’t budge. Jackson was tempted to walk away. “What he did not know,” Jackson said, “where he had me was, I needed this home. I had to have this house. There was no way around it.” (Gawker)
Jackson, 31, partnered with 22-year-old Davis Hammet to fuel the Westboro hate and negative attention into something positive.
“We’re going to take the negative attention and try to spin it into something positive,” Hammet said. “Instead of millions of children around the world getting this hate message, they’re going to see this message of compassion and love.”
What do the Westboro kooks think of the house?
Daughter of epically stupid founder Fred Phelps, Shirley Phelps-Roger, loves the idea, she says. Though she called Jackson’s idea a “message of nonsense,” she claimed that:
?I love it,? she said. ?What [Jackson] does is he keeps the eyes of the whole earth on this message. Now every day all people are thinking about is God will not have same-sex marriage.? (Salon)
Phelps-Roger had a different tone in an earlier meeting with Jackson, however. He was taking a walk through the neighborhood and ran into her and her husband. He said that their conversation was pleasant and that Phelps-Roger even made a light-hearted joke.
“It’s the craziest thing — and it really throws you off — because she’s the type of woman who calls you “hun” and “darling” — she’s very Southern,” he said. “It’s like, aren’t you the lady that’s supposed to be casting me into hell? It’s truly mind-boggling, but I can’t say anything personally bad about her because she was kind to me and she made me laugh. She’d probably be fun to hang out with.”
Umm . . . ok. Pass! We’ll leave that to you, Mr. Jackson.
Members of the lunatic fringe group are aware of Jackson’s activism and they’re already on top of it. Describing the church members as “extremely smart,” Jackson reports that many of them – including high–ranking church official Steve Drain – have actually been taking photos of the house and the industrial flag pole that stands in direct opposition to the Westboro flagpole.
“It looks like the United Nations is having a stand off with flags. These flag poles are huge. They know that we’ve forked out big money for this,” Jackson said.?(Huffington Post)
But irritating the Westboro wackos is a very small part of Jackson’s motivation. Now that the house is completed, he’s eager to move forward to the truly important issues.
“We want this house to be a message that where there’s hate, there’s also love. But we also want to raise awareness and capital, and we want to put all that money into creating and sustaining anti-bullying programs, along with supporting anti-bullying programs that already exist,” he said. “Beyond the symbolic message of the home, [the house] will be utilized by volunteers to live here, and these volunteers will work on promoting equality anywhere in the world and managing these anti-bullying initiatives that we plan on creating.”?(Huffington Post)
Mr. Jackson’s optimism is apparent and, I’m afraid, unrealistic (though I applaud him for it and would welcome being wrong!). He feels that the house and the efforts that will take place in the organization will contribute to the demise of the Westboro Baptist Church.
“I think the future for the Westboro Baptist Church is very bleak,” he said. “These poor kids will hopefully continue to leave that church. They have a lot of kids over there, but unfortunately they’re not in a place where they can make decisions for themselves,” he said, citing recent expos? books and interviews by former church-members.
He continued:
“I love seeing all of these Republicans and all these people who have been anti-gay all this time jumping ship because they know they’re on the wrong side of history. It’s an amazing thing to see,” he said. “I know we have a long way to go in fighting bigotry, but we all know the gays are going to win. It’s going to happen.”
Okay so yes, I think his optimism is a little above average and that the demise of this nut-group is not imminent. They thrive off of negative attention. But honestly? Nothing has ever been accomplished without unrealistic optimism that fuels people to attempt the impossible. Jackson is “shooting for the stars,” ?and I’m going to buy into Mr. Jackson’s optimism and say that he may not reach the stars with this particular venture, because if you “shoot for the stars,” the worst you can do is reach the moon.
Want to support the Equality House project? You can donate on the?Crowdrise website; Thus far,$40, 946? of the $100,000 goal has been collected via donations as small as $10.
Editor: AEK