GettyAs the universal fight against nasty neighbours rages on, Lexi Magnusson has the perfect response for the homophobes next door.
When the 34-year-old Seattle resident met her neighbour, she was alarmed to hear the bigoted woman’s homophobic and transphobic sentiments, reports Mashable.
So, in the sweetest revenge we’ve seen since My Chemical Romance were a thing, Magnusson decided to hang her Christmas lights with a proud twist: In the colours of the LGBTQ flag.
RedditMagnusson posted her artistic efforts for equality on Reddit, where she captioned the photo:
Our new neighbors are bigots. Since regular aggression leads to assault charges, I went with passive aggression. 10,000 lights later…
Magnusson went to mammoth effort to construct the LGBTQ Christmas decorations outside her home.
She adorned the fence with old Christmas lights she had lying around, spray painting white twinkle lights with the colours of the flag which are outside the festive colour palette, such as yellow and orange, to fully achieve the rainbow effect.
Magnusson – who was a Mormon before she renounced the church for their anti-LGBT teachings – was shocked to hear the new neighbour, a Mormon herself, openly spread her bigoted views.
She said:
When we asked her what brought her to Washington she said it was to protect her children. She spoke about how disturbed she was that her son got turned down by a girl for prom because she was going with her girlfriend. She was very upset that the school allowed ‘that’ at the prom.
She then went on to talk about how there was an assembly at the middle school her child was attending about transgender people. She told me that they even had a kid stand up and talk about how he is transgender. I thought she had meant that the school had outed him, and was horrified – but she quickly cleared it up.
The boy was the one who had pushed for the assembly. Can you imagine how brave that kid had to be? She said that she wanted to get her children away from that sort of influence and people making their ‘lifestyle’ okay.
GettySome might ask why Magnusson chose to avoid a direct confrontation with the woman, arguing against her archaic views.
Magnusson answers these criticisms, saying:
If I had yelled at her it would only feed into her persecution complex and false belief that LGBT people and their allies, along with people who have left the Mormon church, are angry bullies who are not tolerant of other people’s views.
I hate that whole line of reasoning – but I knew that if she was willing to move her kids to get away from the gays there would be little I could say to her to change her mind. She would have been right though, I am not tolerant of that ‘point of view.’
I wanted to say more to her. I wanted to write her a letter telling her how sad I was that she would feel this way about other humans, especially children. But it wouldn’t have mattered.
Magnusson chose a way to champion the LGBT cause at a time post-election when America’s ideologies are divided. She added, ‘The election happened and the weight of all of those voters who feel exactly the same as [the bigot] does really set in’.
In a world where debate is rife and outspoken views flood conversation, this is a perfect example of how to spread LGBT Pride, equality and cheer loud enough for all to hear.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.