Personally, I’d prefer my light pollution to come from (even bad attempts at) art and decoration rather than the far more typical sodium lights illuminating an empty parking lot.
Anyway, they are solar lights. Unless the kind I’ve seen are atypical, they are pretty dim.
I know nobody knows me, so take this for what you will, but I can vouch it’s real and not a cash grab. The lady who initially posted it (with permission from the homeowner, who is her friend) is a friend of mine, and actually does door for us at events we run. When she posted it Tuesday(?) night on FB, everyone on her friend list immediately thought, “Holy sh*t, this is going to go viral in seconds.” I know there’s no reason to believe me, but it’s not a cash grab or hoax. The press is going to continue to leap all over this, so it should be pretty clear shortly.
The neighbor is Real Estate clueless. No one brings up property values like gays. They should be bringing them cookies. Rainbow cookies.
9:15 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
9:16 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
9:17 And Noah said unto God, whoa, dude. Don’t you think that’s a bit relentlessly gay? Isn’t there something else you could use?
9:18 And God said, remember what I said a moment ago about how ‘the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh’? I’m starting to have second thoughts.
9:19 And Noah said unto God, well, I guess you could always just write ‘no homo’ in big letters over the top. But that whole rainbow thing still looks a bit suspect to me.
[Genesis 9:15-19]
I love this book!!!
My parent’s read it to me and now I read it to my kids, one of our favorites of all times.
We like Star Trek in our house, and put up a United Federation of Planets flag on a flagpole in our yard for fun. Then we caught hell from some nutbar who couldn’t tell the difference between that and a UN flag, and took us to task for whatever they disliked about the United Nations. We also had a neighbor who had a Jolly Roger flying from a tree in his yard. Personally, if I had an annoying neighbor who was anti-gay, I’d seriously consider finding and flying a rainbow flag.
Um the Federation of Planets is what the UN has evolved in to in the year 2161, after a capitalism-crushing liberal hegemony has been imposed on the world through deceitful fear-mongering about global climate change, and the pushing of the “progressive” agenda of income equality and The Gay Sex. Duh.
Our street lights are being gradually replaced with LED. I don’t really mind people having little lights in the garden that much, it was just for literary [stet] effect. But I do like it to get properly dark at night.
According to http://www.city-data.com/ that area is 0.6% “likely homosexual households”. It doesn’t give statistics on religion.
What’s wrong with pirates? Pirates are fun and sexy.
Those had better be African elephants, otherwise they’re going to have a real problem when they try breeding them.
The church in that neighborhood is gay friendly and vocally supports gay couples. Reading through the note and her comments on it, both have the exact same strange wording choices, tone, and odd capitalization choices, to me it is quite obvious both the letter and the campaign request had the exact same author. Everyone has a unique writing signature, and once you start to see this sort of thing, one as obvious as hers is quite unmistakeable, all her follow up comments are in the exact same style and have the exact same unique eccentricities. To me this appears to be someone trying to profit off of inflaming hatred and creating intentional polarity.
I think there are many much better campaigns to give to that actually support the LGBT community in real tangible ways. She isn’t doing anything to actually help the LGBT community that she admittedly isn’t even a part of, just herself. If this was a real incident, I’d have preferred it if she used it to support and raise awareness for the LGBT community, not just use it for her own benefit/profit.
Best case scenario: someone profiting off of hate towards a group they aren’t a part of
Worst case scenario: outright fabricated scam
Don’t get me wrong, I am horribly saddened that real things like this and much worse happen every day…i’m even more heartbroken at the idea that someone would scam/fake such an incident for profit. also, for the record, i’m all for gaying up yards 
I don’t know about their kids, but my 4 year old asked my wife and I if girls could get married (she currently wants to marry her best friend because you know, boys are yucky), to which my wife’s answer was “yes”. And mine was a more realistic “in some places honey, but more and more as time goes on”.
Her response (and note that her head didn’t twist about with her barfing pea soup, nor was there any sudden whiff of brimstone…) “ok”. Immediately to be followed by the usual sort of stream of consciousness thought to speech that one expects from a 4 year old. The world didn’t end. We didn’t all immediately start shooting people and smoking crack. It was pretty much a non-issue.
Looks like this lady’s neighbors could learn a lot from the thought patterns of a 4 year old.
Well, yeah. Especially yours, since it would appear that you’re honest with your kids.
Most religious parents practice institutionalized lying in their households. For instance, teaching their children that “sin is morally bad”. In fact the bible never says anything about morals. It says what you should and shouldn’t do according to what an authority says. So lots of children grow up not realizing that morality is relevant to how you treat people. It doesn’t have anything to do with a set of rules to follow in order to fulfill the orders of authority figures.
When I lived in Northwest Atlanta, my neighbors had the most bizarre yard you ever saw. It was packed with homemade decorations – fake wells, birds, all kinds of things. Not well crafted either.
But you know what? They were the salt of the earth. They looked out for people. They kept an eye on my place when I was out.
People should get the stick out of their butts and just mind their own business. A rainbow won’t harm your children.
I kind of liked my neighbor’s yard. It was like a folk art Disneyland.
Probably NO CHANCE that she’s telling the truth, because women, amirite? She’s just another feeeeeeemail internet grifter taking money from the babies poorly men who really need those $5 and $10 contributions to combat widespread (like jelly!) misandry and testicle-hatred. Good thing you’re looking out for us all, or who knows what might happen?!?
Except nobody said that, at all.
Instead, maybe the money - and I hope she at least donates some - to go to the actual people the hatred was directed against, who suffer from massive rates of homelessness, joblessness, etc?
There ARE people out there who really need those small donations to just live. There ARE people out there who are outright rejected by charities because they’re gay, or transgender. This just ends up seeming crass, when I know people who are begging for just a few hundred so they can move out of an abusive home, and similar. Can’t you see how it really rubs people the wrong way, when stuff like this happens?
Quite frankly, I replied to the comment above because it smacked of the constant gamergater refrain about women creating patreon accounts just to become rich. Which is obviously ludicrous.
As noted upthread, she’s a widow with kids, so I don’t have a problem handing her some cash to spruce up her whatever. I hope she uses the money responsibly, but it’s now her money to do with as she pleases, and her conscience will bear the brunt should she spend it pointlessly.
And I don’t think this is a zero-sum game, where this one woman is sucking up all the donations or funding chances available. Are there people who are more in need? Certainly. But that doesn’t preclude her from asking for donations.
As to donating to the people “the hatred was directed against”, is the gay community in Baltimore suffering from massive rates of homelessness or joblessness? I don’t know, but I doubt it. Baltimore as a whole is suffering in numerous ways right now but I don’t think the gay community is specifically any more troubled than other marginalized groups in the area.
As for being crass–yes, I could absolutely see this person as being crass if she did it just to purchase an 80 inch TV or buy some diamond-tipped iphone covers, but I choose to believe that she’s being honest and people simply donated money to her in excess of the amount she asked for initially.
