This election has divided Americans like few in history and it was followed by a wave of hate crime attacks against minorities across the US. However, we still feel that hate can be fought with love. Or at least with passive aggression.
When the new neighbor of Lexi Magnusson expressed anti-LGBT opinions, Lexi decided to do something about it. "Our new neighbors are bigots. Since regular aggression leads to assault charges, I went with passive aggression. 10,000 lights later." - she captioned her photo.
The new neighbor thought that Lexi still held the same belief about LGBT issues as the Church does, and even moved to Washington in order "to protect her children."
"Thinking that we were allies, she went on to tell us how horrified she was when her son got turned down for prom because the girl was already planning on going with her girlfriend. And THEN the junior high had an assembly about transgender people where they spotlighted one of the students who is a transgender boy. I thought she had meant that the school outed him, which, in my book is horrifyingly wrong. Nope, he had organized the assembly and spoke of the realities of being transgender," - Lexi wrote on reddit.
"That, coupled with the school's justifications for letting lesbians attend the prom together and doing an assembly that taught kids the facts about being transgender were just too much for her." That's why she wanted to get her children "away from that sort of influence and people making their "lifestyle" okay".
Luckily, Lexi managed to stay calm and reacted in the best possible way. With Christmas lights.
"Here's the thing: I was a fully believing Mormon once. I know where she is coming from. 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 (She moved to Washington. It's basically North Oregon.) 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," - she told Mashable.
"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. Then the election happened and the weight of all of those voters who feel exactly the same as she does really set in. 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."