Mykey O’Halloran is known for creating vibrant, colorful hairstyles — so when he recently purchased a beige home, it was a no-brainer for him that he’d give it a makeover.
To help spread his joy — and his pride at being a gay man — O’Halloran decided he’d paint his new beach house on Phillip Island, a small Australian community of about 7,000 people, in rainbow stripes, thePostreported.
“I am a good person in society and I bring joy with rainbows, and no opinionated homophobic that’s opposed to the decision of how I want to live my life is going to take that away from me,” O’Halloranwrote on Facebook. “This house will be rainbow, and it will be rainbow with pride.”
The trouble began on March 16, when O’Halloran said that five angry men banged on his door and confronted him about his plans to transform his home, which he bought in February, he told thePost.
“They’d heard about it through a conversation with the painter who was painting my kitchen. They told me, ‘Don’t do it. Paint your house and see what happens, because next time we meet, it won’t be so nice,'” he told the outlet.
The hair stylist said the men shouted homophobic slurs at him, and one even threatened to kill him if he did go ahead with his plans to paint his house (that man was later charged with unlawful assault and making threats to kill, according to thePost.)
“I felt a lot of fear in my body about anything that was potentially about to happen. I cried myself to sleep last night after feeling so invaded, violated, homophobically attacked and threatened in my very own home,” O’Halloran wrote onFacebook.
Within a month, though, O’Halloran’s mood had lifted, and on April 18, more than 100 people showed up, paintbrushes in hand, to paint his home with blue, green, yellow, orange, purple and pink stripes.
Linda Wilson, 47, was among those to show up to help, and said that she felt it was important to come and “show solidarity and support” for her new neighbor.
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“There was a lot of openheartedness there on the day [the house was painted], and someone volunteered their time with a barbecue to feed all who attended,” Wilson, who facilitates an LGBTQ support group, told thePost.
Just as he transformed his house from beige to rainbow, O’Halloran was able to transform a painful situation into one brimming with joy, andwrote on Facebookthat the incident had inspired a new lesson.
“The message we must take out of this situation and learn from this is to stand your ground, don’t let bullies tell you how you should be living your life,” he wrote. “It’s totally okay to be yourself in this world, everyone has the right to be who they are, and have freedom of expression.”
source: people.com
