Homophobic neighbor tears up pride flag in man's yard, so he covers it with 800 pride flags

Editor's note: This article was originally published on June 23, 2022. It has since been updated.

Pride month is a celebration of the assertion, progress, visibility and freedoms of the LGBTQ+ community, but homophobes also use it as an opportunity to reveal their bigotry. As many LGBTQ+ members have shown us, the best way to fight petty homophobes is to be pettier in return. Addison certainly did not hold back after a homophobic neighbor uprooted and tore up a small pride flag and a sign supporting human rights he had planted in his yard. Addison decided to give it back by installing 800 pride flags in his yard. He posted the events on his TikTok channel which made its round online, reported Comicsands.

Addison posted the first video showing the flag removed from the frame, torn up, and thrown on the ground. "Wait and watch" he warned. He posted a video throwing hundreds of flags onto a bed and captioned the video, "Gonna be able to see our house from SPACE!!! 🌈" His followers were already excited and waited in anticipation of Addison's plans. He covered his yard with flags and even held events to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. "So many people wanted to help that the community ended up holding two live events full of discourse, support, and celebration," he wrote.

Not only did he install new flags, but he also marked them with the name of an LGBT community member, or an ally. The idea was to show how many people were stepping up to drown out the hate of that one homophobic neighbor. The flags weren't limited to just rainbow flags but also flags representing bisexuality, trans people, the ACE community, and more. "Thank you soooo much to everyone who participated and a special thanks to all my wonderful donors and hard-working moderators! You guys rock!!! ❤️," he wrote. 

People just couldn't get enough of the videos. "Hell to the yes, this is one of the best things I have ever seen😌👏👏," wrote one person. "Thank you for this. And thank you for putting mine and my bf’s name on one. Wish I had known you had the ACE flags. 🫶🫶🫶🖤💜🤍🫶🫶🫶 Happy Pride," commented another. "The rain is gonna weigh down the flags so they should have an even less chance of blowing away now🥰," added another.

The LGBTQ+ community constantly has to battle hate to even express themselves and it's certainly not the first time a member or ally has had to do that. As we reported, during Pride month in 2021, a gay couple from Florida refused to take down their pride flag after a homeowners association (HOA) ordered them to. They were threatened with a daily fine of $50. Bob Plominski and Mike Ferrari of Oakland Park, Florida, were issued a citation for putting up the rainbow flag for violating the rule that bans residents from flying flags other than the U.S. or military flags in the neighborhood. The gay couple was confused by the notice from the homeowners association, considering the pair had flown the flag before and also posted political signs in the neighborhood. The couple was adamant about not taking down the flag and said it was just a case of someone raising a complaint because they are offended by it. 

“I got upset," said Plominski. "We’ve done this before and it’s a simple showing of our pride to the community and it’s up for 30 days. We were in shock they were going to do that,” he added. Bob Brusseau, president of the Eastland Cove Homeowners Association, said the five-person board of the homeowners association received a complaint, stating that it violated the rules. "It's in the document, and you can be sued," said Brusseau. He added that the fines wouldn't be enforced until around 30 to 40 days from the issuing date of the citation, according to Brusseau. The couple confirmed they wouldn't take down the pride flag until the end of the month. “It’s going to stay up until June 30," said Plominski. "We as a community worked really hard to earn and get to where we are today. We’re not going to back down on this one.”