MY NEW HERO
Aaron Jackson
[T]he inhabitants of the Westboro Baptist Church compound in Topeka, Kansas…have a new view out their windows, just past their FAG MARRIAGE DOOMS NATIONS sign: a new gay-rights center across the street, painted in brilliant rainbow colors, with a pride flag flying from a 30-foot flagpole.
I long ago swore off writing about the Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps’ merry band of hateful, homophobic inbreds from Topeka, KS. Their hateful “GOD HATES FAGS” protest of virtually anything good and decent is only fed by publicity. This is why I was so intrigued by a new and wonderful in-your-face tactic led by Aaron Jackson, a highly mobile one-man attempt to change the world.
Jackson has coordinated a volunteer effort to repaint a house directly across the street from WBC…and it’s not just any paint job. It’s an impossible to miss, deliberately unsubtle pastiche of rainbow colors…and a pride flag flying proudly from a 30-ft. flagpole. No attempts to outdo the WBC pinheads, no efforts to outshout them, just a simple quiet effort to establish a bulkhead of tolerance and diversity across the street from the headquarters of perhaps the most vile and hateful collection of sorry excuses for humanity extant today.
Jackson’s project is a fascinating attempt to turn WBC’s media strategy against them. If nothing else, he’ll succeed in bringing tolerance and diversity right to WBC’s doorstep.
In your face, indeed. Well played, sir.
