EQUALITY HOUSE IS UNDER SIEGE, BUT STILL STANDING

From: Wicked

In recent week, the Equality House in Kansas has been defaced with homophobic and threatening graffiti, bullet holes, and, charming, feces. And guess what? Fuck that noise, cuz’ it’s still standing.

Planting Peace’s Aaron Jackson tells the Advocate that hate crimes have been on the rise since you know who’s orange ass made it into office.

Jackson, whose nonprofit organization Planting Peace purchased the property in 2013 and transformed it into an outpost of hope, reported in a Facebook post Tuesday that his life was threatened by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the house’s free library had been “covered in feces.”

Alarmingly, Jackson also detailed how five white men spraypainted the words “fuk [sic] fags” on the house’s facade. The vandals also shot at the property, leaving seven bullet holes in a window.

Jackson bought the property across from the hate-mongering Westboro Baptist Church in 2013, and transformed it into a symbol of equality for the LGBTQ community. He also says that he’s received death threats. How proud they must be. You can read his entire Facebook post below.

Before painting the Equality House, Davis and I thought it would only be three weeks before the house was burnt down.

We even set forth escape plans. But something beautiful happened over the course of the last three years…. Nothing.

With roughly 150 visitors a day, the Equality House had never been attacked.

Then, in late 2016:

– Our Little Free Library was covered in feces.

– The KKK knocked on our door and told Davis and me that we would be killed if Trump were elected.

– Then, a few weeks ago, I was awakened by the sounds of 5 white guys spray painting “fuk fags” along the exterior of my house. They also left 7 bullet holes in my window.

I spoke with the Southern Poverty Law Center after the Equality House was shot, and they confirmed hate crimes are on the rise.

I’ve seen more swastikas in the last couple of days than I have seen in my lifetime outside of historical references.

But what scares me more than the bullets nailing my window and swastikas popping up on street corners around America is the absolute silence from far too many. This is no time to be complacent my friends. We must act.

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

– Aaron Jackson

President

www.plantingpeace.org