“God hates fags,” “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “Thank God for 9/11”. These are some of the slogans the Westboro Baptist Church members proudly flaunt on picket signs. Living across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church takes a certain degree of patience and understanding which very few people possess. FSU alumnus Davis Hammet is one of the few who fit that description. He has made major strides in human rights all over the world and has been interviewed by major news corporations like CNN, MSNBC, and the Huffington Post. I got the astounding opportunity to sit down with Davis on a sunny (albeit cold) afternoon. Hammet was one of the founders of the Equality House. For those of you who don’t know, the Equality House is the rainbow house located directly across the street from the headquarters of the Westboro Baptist Church, the hate-group notorious for picketing dead soldiers’ funerals. Hammet explained to me that the Equality House was set up through Planting Peace, a nonprofit organization that has been committed to dozens of humanitarian projects such as delivering de-worming medication to third world countries, rainforest conservation, and opening/running orphanages in India and Haiti. He got involved through the founder of the organization, Aaron Jackson. Jackson asked Hammet to move to New York and help run Planting Peace which at the time was mostly a de-worming program, not a human rights organization. Hammet claimed he learned a lot at FSU that he was able to apply to his work with Planting Peace, especially when it came to setting up the Equality House.
The plan to create the Equality House was formulated by Jackson and Hammet while messing around one day on Google Earth. They checked out the Westboro Baptist Church’s compound and were surprised to find it was actually a really small church, but what surprised them even more was the blurry for sale sign they saw on the screen. Hammet thought buying the house and painting it rainbow would send a strong message that, “you should be who you want to be even in the face of hatred.” Like many others, he had been the victim of bullying in the past. He struggled with his sexual orientation his whole life, only able to come out as queer even to himself at the age of 21. Hammet attempted suicide as a kid, an all-too common occurrence among LGBTQ youth.
Having to move to Kansas was a bit of a culture shock for Hammet who was raised in Florida and had been living in Brooklyn for the few months prior to the Equality House plans. When they got to Kansas, the house they wanted was no longer available, but what they got was even better! As it turned out, the house directly across the street from the WBC compound had also been for sale. The two-bedroom home was purchased for around $80,000. They knew they would have to be discrete while painting the house because the WBC is actually full of lawyers. Not wanting to be shut down before they even got started, they worked in secrecy. It took them longer than they anticipated to paint the house because it was too cold to paint when they originally wanted to do it. In the mean time, they had to lie to their neighbors by saying they were a part of a campus outreach program because no one could know why they were really there. March19th, 2013 was a day that would go down in human rights history. This was the night they finally started painting the Equality House. They contacted media members and gave them a heads up, knowing what they were doing was going to be huge. They planned what Hammet referred to as a “social media blitz”. Directly after the house was painted, the Huffington Post got pictures and they went viral. Hammet’s phone and email started blowing up that same day. Everyone wanted interviews, even news companies outside of America like Australia’s “Sunrise at Seven,” wanted to hear all about it. The traffic to the house was a stand-still with thousands of people thronging there every day. “People were crying tears of joy, laughing, loving,” Hammet fondly recalled. He was overwhelmed with euphoria; it was almost surreal. Hammet and his fellow Planting Peace members lived off cookies for about a month because there was constant influx of people bringing them and other baked goods over to thank them. Hammet recalled a girl running up to him and hugging him on the day they launched, exclaiming that her family had left Topeka because of the WBC but now, Topeka was an international symbol of love. One paint job revolutionized the image of an entire city.
The most surprising reaction came from the WBC. What was so surprising was that they continued to be the friendly neighbors they had been prior to the painting and the press. Shirley Phelps-Roper, the spokesperson for the WBC and daughter of the church’s founder, came out and started taking pictures of the house. They asked her how she liked the colors and she just laughed and said she loved it. Hammet and the other founders of the Equality House were criticized left and right for bringing attention to the WBC, but, according to Hammet, if you ignore the problem then you ignore the victim. Thousands of kids commit suicide every year because of bigots like the WBC. You can ignore the WBC all you want, but that will do nothing to help their victims. Hammet just wanted to show people “there is always love around.”
Creating the Equality House was a life-changing experience for Hammet. It completely altered his outlook on life. The reaction he got from the WBC proved to him they just have a warped world view, and that they aren’t actually bad people. “We should pity them and love them,” he insisted. The experience made him an overall more optimistic person. “It was overwhelming because I didn’t realize so much love existed in the world,” he exclaimed as he reminisced about the day the Equality House launched. He described the feeling it gave him as “complete restoration of faith in humanity.” He said he can’t be sad about anything for too long anymore. All they had really done was paint a house, yet people were contacting them constantly to tell them how they stopped cutting or changed their mind about committing suicide because of the Equality House. You never realize how much a small gesture can affect people. Something as simple as smiling at a stranger can save a life. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.” Hammet agrees that only absolute, unconditional love can destroy a hate group like the WBC. Hate fuels them. Violence will only make impressionable kids in the WBC hate gays even more. Yet, with the right amount of love, Hammet has witnessed members like Libby Phelps successfully leave the group. Libby used to be one of the people proudly holding “God hates fags” picket signs and now she mentors trans* teens. The unconditional love the founders of the Equality House provided the WBC made them think and even helped change a few minds. Don’t blindly hate people because they can’t help the way they were raised. The WBC is full of nice people with a nasty misunderstanding of the world.
Currently, Hammet is still working with Planting Peace and their many humanitarian projects including delivering de-worming medication to people in need, running four orphanages in Haiti and two in India, and preserving rainforests. He also helps organize events at the Equality House. So far they’ve hosted a drag charity show entitled, “Drag Dow Bigotry,” a candlelight vigil for Transgender Day of Remembrance, the Gay Olympics, and a same sex wedding which was planned in just one week, days before DOMA was overturned. “I probably don’t even want to get married after that,” he joked. Hammet has also traveled to Uganda and worked with Pepe Onziema, a civil rights leader living in secrecy, to help educate the masses on LGBTQ issues as a part of an illegal underground movement in the severely homophobic country. Pepe is actually seen as a terrorist in Uganda just for raising awareness about the LGBTQ community. Hammet does a lot of public speaking, but his favorite speech was actually one he did for FSU’s Social Justice Living Learning Community. Equality House has opened a lot of opportunities for Hammet, so much so that some days he doesn’t get to sleep, but it’s all worth it in his opinion.
Hammet always considered himself an activist, but FSU helped him realize his full potential. He’s made some amazing accomplishments in his life and continues to do phenomenal things for human rights world-wide, but it was at FSU that he met the people and learned the necessary skills to make it all possible. As for his humanitarian and civil rights work, Hammet continues to work his hardest, traveling the world and making it an overall better place. “Every day is insane…I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he told me, and he’s sure things will only get crazier.
For more information on Planting Peace and Equality House, you can contact Davis Hammet at davis@plantingpeace.org