Mike Pence's New Neighbors Protest His Arrival With Rainbow Flags

Vice president-elect Mike Pence has new neighbors, and they have a message for him: We stand with the LGBT community.

Residents of the Northwest Washington, D.C., neighborhood Chevy Chase, Maryland, where Pence has taken up a temporary residence, are registering their protest with the Indiana governor's position on LGBT rights by hanging rainbow flags from their homes.

Pence is living in the neighborhood temporarily until he is sworn in as vice president, at which point he will move into the official vice presidential residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Suzanne Kennedy, a reporter for ABC 7 News in Washington, posted these pictures from Pence's block.

Approximately a half-dozen flags have been unfurled on the block, and neighbors said more are on the way.

Ilse Heintzen, one woman who lives on Pence’s block, told WJLA that her decision to hang a flag is “a respectful message showing, in my case, my disagreement with some of his thinking.”

“I have no idea what he will think about, but I hope he will change his mind,” said Heintzen. “This is one way that I can show my disagreement.”

Pence, as a national officeholder and as governor, has repeatedly advocated for policy and law that has been opposed by the LGBT community.

As a congressman, he supported an effort in 2006 to amend the Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, saying in a speech that gay couples bring about "societal collapse." In 2010, he opposed the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, saying he did not want to see the military become “a backdrop for social experimentation.”

During his time as governor of Indiana, he signed the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," which critics said would allow discrimination against LGBT citizens of his state. He later amended the bill to prevent discrimination.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons