“…Other than that, Christ and every other writer of the scriptures agree on this – you must love your neighbor as yourself and your enemy and everyone…”

Uh, see, I love myself. I love myself frequently, and uh, passionately. So, in keeping with Christ’s teachings, I love other women as I love myself. Frequently and passionately. Hee hee. And that’s what gay men do, too. Yep, I’m living a good christian life.

And also… do those ramblings in the letter about why god hates Colorado make anyone else want to move there?

You’re right. I am an undisciplined brute. I have so much real work to do, and I promised myself that today I wouldn’t write. but here I am, anyway, because I actually have an opportunity to communicate with one of the extremely rare but depressingly visible Phelps Clan (genus: primate. Species: HOMO non-sapiens: variety: ignoramus invincit) hoping you’ll return to a website full of the people you love to hate– and clearly hate to love– and read my efforts.

I think you will, of course. One thing I have noticed in these blogs is the persistence of the desire on the parts of the moralizers and condemners to hang around and gaze at the sodomites. So many of you are so clearly fascinated by what you see. Titillated, even, just a teeny WEENY bit.

Or wallowing in it. That’s my theory.

Stephen Donaldson had an interesting definition of corruption, moral corruption. Corruption is becoming that which you hate. When you wallow in what you conceive of as our ‘filth’, you get to be a pig without ever having to take a bath afterwards. I wish I could manage that level of self-delusion, But you know, I really can’t convince myself that when I am standing knee deep in pig-crap that I’m really smelling the Rose of Sharon. But that is the nature of corruption, isn’t it? your just laborin’ in the vineyards, and doin’ God’s will. How sweet is that?

I don’t visit Townhall, or FOF, or AFA, or godhatesfags websites because I can see that they are clearly pig crap, and I don’t want to inject that into my life. It smells bad. Yet, here you are, and the occasional anti-gay poster, just itching to tell us what’s wrong with us.

Now I know, of course, that I am probably wasting my time writing to you. I am well aware that your mind is closed more tightly than Jerry Falwell’s sphincter would be, were he still with us and not roasting in hell forever. Amazing that a mind so closed should be attached to a mouth so open, but it’s an incongruity that’s common enough.

My wonderful late partner had an interesting theory of humanity. (He was a sweet man, knew the value of friends, wise, witty, with a knack for using words precisely and clearly. I’m sure you would have hated him in your own loving way. And no, he’s not burning in hell. That’s your need to believe, not ours). Anyway, Larry thought that the world was divided between two groups of people: those who were “on a mission” and those who were not.

People “on a mission”– let’s call them missionaries– have a number of attributes. Oddly, because their outlook is so negative in terms of how they see things, much of what they do is negative (opposed to happiness) in its means and outcomes. They are defined as much by the negative and what they are not, than they are by anything positive and what they are. They are not content to be happy, to live their lives, or content even to be merely content. Unfortunately, because they ARE “on a mission”, they are also not content to let other people to live their lives and be happy, either. They have to manage. They have to interfere. They almost always have their panties in a bunch, their knickers in a twist, about something– or more often, someone. Unfortunately, that someone had better watch out, because those people are ON A MISSION.

They do not understand these kinds of concepts, these basics of civilized living: Leave everyone the hell alone. Mind your own business. Judge not lest ye be judged. Look not for the speck, etc. Be kind. Be truthful. Be polite. Don’t be rude. be considerate of others. Do as you would be done by. Love not hate.

Hatred of others is NEVER a positive thing, either for the hater or the hatee. Look how much time and money you and your charming family spend trying to make other people as miserable as you are. where’s the love, Shirley? Where’s the love? Wouldn’t you rather be on a picnic with your children in a sound-of-music alpine meadow than screaming at people who just lost a loved one?

Well, obviously, no you wouldn’t. Values, Shirley, Values. If everyone preferred picnics to holy wars, we would have a lot more picnics and a lot few holy wars. The picnic basket industry would be booming.

Shirley, I must impart one of the greatest pearls of wisdom I have come across in my 58 years. In the immortal words of Mammy Yokum: Good is better than evil because it’s nicer. It supplants 99% of what passes for morality in the bible, religion in general, and most people. Jesus said the same thing: “By their fruits shall you know them.”

Yet in our world, what claims to be ‘the good’ frequently has a mean face, nasty means, and an unpleasant end for someone– usually someone else. Missionaries almost always claim the represent ‘the good’. Fortunately, many people who are missionaries are innocuous, but frequently, nonetheless, quite annoying. Some, like you Phelpsters, are mostly annoying, and not really innocuous. But fortunately for all of us you’re only annoying, not effective. Except for the people whose lives you briefly shatter when you show up at the funerals.

Shirley, you are really a class act. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that picketing a funeral is rude, whether you know the people or not?

But even that is temporary, though annoying.

Unfortunately, there are also missionaries who are well beyond annoying and innocuous, because they are effective. George bush invading the middle east. Hitler murdering 6 million Jews. The crusades. the temperance movement, mother of organized crime in America. Communism. Fascism. Protestants murdering Catholics, and vice versa. Witch burners. Slave holders. The religious right. The PLO. Sharia law. 9/11 bombers. radical Islam.

And anti-gay crusaders. And on and on and on.

I know it is your ambition to be an effective agent of darkness and misery. What a scary ambition. (Mine is to live to a ripe old age, happy and healthy, with my husband and our numerous friends and family.)

But I’m here to remind you of something. Your ambition will be thwarted. You will never achieve the greatness of, say Ayatollah Khomeini, when it comes to being a true missionary. In the end, you are not great.

You are merely annoying.

But i’m not an undisciplined brute. I just haven’t been subject to YOUR discipline. but then, neither have you.

I would hate to live my life in the emotional roil that is your life. That must just wear you out. Just reading your spew wears me out.

Paul is talking about the way servants of God must love one another. Other than that, Christ and every other writer of the scriptures agree on this – you must love your neighbor as yourself and your enemy and everyone and God told you what that looks like. It is getting out in the public places and warning them to flee from the wrath to come – warning them that their sin will take them to hell! If you don’t do that, you hate each other in your hearts! You can’t change that – God did that! It is HIS work and it is HIS standards that rule!

So – from this happy and thankful servant of God, I warn you again – OBEY YOUR GOD!! Put away your filthy manner of life – shut your mouth and OBEY YOUR GOD! Hell is real – ask Matt!

Your best friend,

Shirley Phelps-Roper
8/31/08

It reminds me of some of the homeless people I used to hear talking to themselves – incoherent, self-contradicting, rambling off onto tangent after tangent, as if there was no sense of self in charge.

Darn it, you’ve made me feel sorry for her.