Woman hung 10,000 rainbow Christmas lights to protest a homophobic neighbor
This week has shown a trend of Americans trumping hate with love in the form of rainbow flags.
Mike Pence's D.C. neighbors' have been hanging rainbow flags on their houses to protest his homophobic views, and about 20 residents of a Michigan neighborhood hung pride flags after a neighbor expressed distaste for them.
Lexi Magnusson, 34, is following suit – but with a luminescent twist. After her neighbor in the Seattle area expressed anti-LGBTQ opinions, Magnusson covered her own lawn in 10,000 rainbow Christmas lights.
SEE ALSO: Mike Pence's neighbors are calling him out with rainbow flags
"Our new neighbors are bigots. Since regular aggression leads to assault charges, I went with passive aggression. 10,000 lights later," she captioned the photo on Reddit.
Image: missroseycrotch/reddit
"We had a new neighbor stop by our house to eagerly meet us. She's Mormon, and heard that we were, too. My guess is that she thought we were still believers, even though my husband told her we no longer attend," Magnusson wrote to Mashable. "I imagine she thought we still held the same belief about LGBT issues as the Church does. We absolutely do not. It's why I left the Mormon church."
Magnusson then explained to Mashable the ways in which her neighbor expressed anti-LGBTQ views.
Even though Magnusson's instinct was to respond to her neighbor with anger, she forced herself to take a calmer approach.
While Magnusson's Reddit post jokes about her hanging the lights as an act of passive aggression, she explained that it is more than that.
"It wasn't just a passive aggressive middle finger at my neighbor, I wanted it something more to show my solidarity and belief than just the Human Rights Campaign stickers on our cars," she said. "I've worked in the background to support LGBT causes and have been very vocal on Facebook – but in real life it's still really hard for me. It's probably the wimpy way to go, but it's not nothing."
The lights are pretty impressive in themselves. She decorated them with old Christmas lights she had laying around, and she spray painted some white ones yellow and orange to fully achieve the rainbow effect. And there are more rainbow lights to come.
"I haven't finished the roofline because my husband has been out of town and he doesn't love when I go climbing around on the roof by myself," Magnusson said.
Hopefully passive aggression can also lend a hand in trumping hate.
