When Topeka, Kansas resident Aaron Jackson paid $80,000 for a house next to the Westboro Baptist Church, it wasn’t because he was thinking of becoming a member. Instead, the man behind the non profit Planting Peace wanted to send the famously homophobic ministry a message they’d never forget. To that end, he painted his new residence in gay pride colors and dubbed it “Equality House.”
“The Westboro Baptist Church is the poster child of being anti-gay, so we figured no better place to go and no better place to start changing that message,” Jackson said on Thursday night’s The Ed Show.
Watch host Michael Eric Dyson interview Jackson on The Ed Show above.
Ned Resnikoff is an urban policy analyst, researcher, writer, and editor. His byline has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dissent, and The Nation. He writes the newsletter Public Comment, which can be found at publiccomment.blog.