Baltimore-area woman raises $18K for “relentlessly gay” yard
Woman starts GoFundMe page after complaint about "gay" yard display
“Put simply, I am a widow and the mother of four children, my youngest in high school and I WILL NOT relent to hatred. Instead, I will battle it with whimsy and beauty and laughter and love, wrapped around my home, yard and family!!!”
— Julie Baker, a resident of the Baltimore suburb of Overlea, who claims she got a note from a neighbor complaining about a set of rainbow jar solar lights hanging in her yard that spell out “Love” and “Ohana” (the Hawaiian word for “family”).
In the letter, signed by “A Concerned Home Owner,” the neighbor asked that she “tone it down” as her yard was becoming “relentlessly gay.” The neighbor also threatened to call police if Baker continued to keep the rainbow display, noting that “this is a Christian neighborhood and there are children.” In response, Baker started a GoFundMe campaign to make her yard look even “gayer.”
“Needless to say…I need more rainbows…. Many, many more rainbows,” Baker wrote on her GoFundMe page. “So, I am starting this fundraiser so I can work to make my home even more ‘relentlessly gay.’ If we go high enough, I will see if I can get a rainbow roof! Because my invisible relentlessly gay rainbow dragon should live up there in style!”
With an initial goal of $5,000, Baker raised more than triple that amount — $18,310 — from 1,333 people in one day.
According to the Baltimore City Paper, Baker self-identifies as bisexual but says the point off the rainbow display wasn’t about anything LGBT-related, just merely that she likes rainbows. She claims she has also received similar anonymous notes in the past for unrelated reasons. One night, after a big eclipse, her daughters had lit candles and put out incense as offerings to the universe. But Baker claims she awoke the next morning to find the pot-bellied stove for the incense kicked over and received an anonymous note saying “your kind are not wanted here,” accusing her of devil worship, and reminding her that “houses burn for no apparent reason.”
Image: A shot of the neighbor’s note and Baker’s jar solar light display. Photo credit: reddit user jill853.
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