This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.
Love trumps hate -- and so does a good layer of paint.
Lisa Licata and Sherry Lau are a same-sex couple living in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. For years, they've claimed that their homophobic neighbors, Ron Makay and Iolanda Wieczorkowski, have taunted them with hateful slurs, even going so far as to shoot their dog with an air rifle. The neighbor denies the latter allegation, though Makay has been charged by police with animal cruelty.
After the slurs first intensified, Licata and Lau decided to paint their fence rainbow in proud defiance. That didn't stop the neighbors from complaining.
So Lau and Licata stepped things up by painting a pride flag on the side of their house.
"When he protested against the fence being rainbow, that’s when we decided, let’s do the house,” Licata told WTAE Pittsburgh.
Their rainbow fortress Credit: courtesy of lisa licata “This is the 21st century,” Lau told the network. “We live here. We’re not moving. My family accepts us. Our friends accept us. If you don’t like it, just live your life, leave us alone and everything’s cool.”
So far, Licata's been pleased with her neighborhood's reception to their new glowing house. Even her neighbors have settled down.
"The reaction of the community has been great!" Licata said via Facebook message. "Mostly everyone has been so supportive ... The neighbors have been quiet because they’ve been told by their attorney to be quiet."
In 2013, activists painted a rainbow "Equality House" right across the street from the notorious hate group, The Westboro Baptist Church. Referred to by the Church as the "sodomite house," Equality House nonetheless got plenty of positive attention from the media and viewers driving by.
I also live in a sodomite house, and while I'll never paint it rainbow for aesthetic reasons (I'm a goth), I'll gladly raise a glass to all the brave souls who do.
