News & Opinion
God Loves Gays Billboard Counters Westboro Hate
After the great flood, God created the rainbow. Now, he's back to defend those who have adopted it as their symbol.
September 10 2014 3:33 PM EST
September 13 2018 5:48 AM EST
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After the great flood, God created the rainbow. Now, he's back to defend those who have adopted it as their symbol.
The Facebook God, a popular satire account with 1.7 million likes, has been a social media sensation since 2011, extending his snarky influence across facebook, twitter, youtube, and reddit. But after a successful IndieGoGo campaign that raised over $80,000, God is ready to impart his wisdom on the physical world.
After posting a question to his facebook group about what they would like to see him do in the real world, for which the top response was to build a God Loves Gays billboard in Topeka, Kansas to counter the town's infamous Westboro Baptist Church, God set forth answering the prayers of his followers.
Setting up an IndieGoGo campaign to raise money for the project, God quickly met his $50,000 goal with help from the faithful, pledging to put any donations beyond that into God Loves Gays bus ads as well as contributions to charity. When the campaign reached $80,000, God set aside $10,000 for The Trevor Project, an organization that helps to provide crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBT youth, and $10,000 for The National Alliance to End Homelessness, citing that a large proportion of homeless people are either veterans or LGBT youth.
On Monday, September 8th, the billboard was officially unveiled in Topeka after God managed to convince the initially hesitant Lamar Advertising company, which owned the billboard space, to agree. "Thus far, they have only let me purchase the billboard through March of 2015. I wanted to purchase the full year," God tells Mashable. "I also wanted to investigate other bigger billboards around town. But before they'll do that, the billboard company wants to see if the community accepts it and likes it first."
Having set up GodLovesGayPeople.com, which is advertised on the billboard in Kansas, God hopes to expand the project in the future, launching billboards in other cities and continuing to donate 20% of all funds raised to The Trevor Project and The National Alliance to End Homelessness. God said to Mashable, when asked why he doesn't simply flood the Westboro Baptist Church like he did to the Earth so long ago, "I don't do that sort of negative thing anymore. A billboard is much more fun and positive. Also, it feels great to raise money for these good causes. I only wish I could do more."
Those interested in tithing to the project can do so at IndieGoGo and GodLovesGayPeople.com.