From: "Matt's Cousin Jo"
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 10:58 AM
To: Matt
Subject: *crying*
Dear Matt,
I was reading a local newspaper and they ran a story about a "church" group coming to protest at the funerals of the Northern Illinois students who were killed. Matt, I have never seen so much hate filled people saying that God is with them. This is their website (careful, it's nasty!):
http://www.godhatesfags.com/
and this is their flier for the funeral protest:
http://www.godhatesfags.com/written/fliers/20080215_niu-carnage.pdf
I know that my God does not back anything these people are doing. Look at their protest schedule on their web site. Matt, I can't believe the amount of hate they have and the fact that they claim that God is with them. It makes me cry to think that this is the kind of thing that you have to face on a daily basis.
I commented on the newspaper website, directing people to the website for the flier so that people know exactly what kind of people are coming. These children who were killed and their families should NOT be subjected to this kind of hate at this time. This isn't God punishing anybody, it is the result of a boy who was emotionally ill. I am so sick by all of this, and it saddens me to see that this is what you actually have to face in everyday life.
I guess I just wanted to say that I love you, and I know the God I worship loves you, too.
Jo
From Matterdays:
Dear Jo,
Thank you for such a sweet and thoughtful e-mail. But please – don’t waste your time on these people. I’m very familiar with the “God Hates Fags”/Westboro Baptist Church/Phelps clan. They are a small group of inbred idiots who have garnered a huge amount of attention based solely on their ignorance and hate. They picket all kinds of funerals – from soldiers killed in Iraq to victims of random violence such as this. Yes, I face this on a daily basis, but not to this extent. This clan used to really upset me, but honestly these days I just roll my eyes and laugh at them. I choose not to have time for people like this.
I truly don’t believe that God punishes anyone for anything. Why would God create all things (as He supposedly has), and then hate and smite those who act on something He has created? The point of life is that God has created EVERYTHING for us to use, even if it’s something that can be used against others. I truly believe that we grow and learn and understand, possibly through many lives, that we are all a part of God and that he is experiencing every possible emotion and action through us. When we learn to use everything that we’ve been given for love rather than fear, then we are rejoined with God to know the experience of love. There are a lot of ideas that agree with this – even look at astrology, where different signs of the zodiac are “newer” or “older” than others. Scott has taught me about that – he is a younger sign, I am an older sign. Maybe I have gone through more lives than he has. He has more energy, I have more quietness. Not that either is better or worse, just different parts of the journey. And not that I am a patient zen-like being – quite the opposite; but we balance each other. No matter how long we are together here on earth, we’ll be part of the same thing again when we’re both through our journeys. We all will. Perhaps the person who shot all of these people, like others who have taken lives, is simply on a different part of the path and hasn’t realized the love and potential that life gives yet. Perhaps the ones who were killed also have other paths to follow for now. Even “evil” touches us and teaches us things. If things like this didn’t happen, we wouldn’t know the opposite. Life is more than what we are experiencing now.
Let the Phelps clan, like many others around the world, spew their hate. They think they are right. We think they are wrong. We’re all on some part of some journey and will get there at some point. And when we’re all part of Us again, we can laugh at the weird ways we found our paths. Everything we endure in the meantime will eventually become immaterial.
Well, that’s what I hope. But not a bad though, eh?
All my love,
Matt
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15 comments:
Amen.
very well said, matt...
You're a wise old sign, Matt
I love you, cuz. Or do I call you Yoda?
;-)
nice job there. Very powerfully written btw.
Nice post. I'm the same old sign as you, as you know. My brother once sent me an email asking why I didn't address these crazy Christian groups on my blog, too. I told him that they were too easy a target. That to attack them with the same kind of vehemence they attack us would just put more hate in the universe. Frankly, I feel sorry for these misguided souls. They want so desperately to matter that these are the tactics they resort to. But in the end, they don't matter, except, as you say, to teach us the opposite.
Hey. I read this a couple of days ago on here and I keep thinking about it. I just don't know, Matter, how you are able to be so open and . . . understanding or something. I admire your ability to not add to the hate. And I'm glad I know you!
Amen, brother!
I'm touched and a bit awed by your thoughtful and profound words. It brings to mind words from my childhood that remind us to meet anger and hate with kindness and forgiveness. If we all thought the way you do, this world would be so much more peaceful and happy.
I've been part of a peaceful protest when these phelps inbeciles (I like your assessment of inbreds)came to picket the church of a gay supportive/affirming minister in Chicago. There were enough people to make a two person deep barricade surrounding the church. We walked in a circle singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (in harmony, mind you!).
The directing minister of the church I attended when I lived downstate Illinois is the grandfather of one of the young women who was killed.
The interesting thing that I find not surprising at all is, now that the phelps clan is picketing the funerals of 'regular' people (i.e. non-gay), it's now mainstream news. This jerk has been doing this for at least 15 years at the funerals of gay men, especially gay men who died from AIDS complications. Sort of like how AIDS didn't become a 'legitimate' health crisis until straight white men (& women) started contracting it.
Well said Matt, I can't add anything more to this. I also feel we should now ignore these nuts and not give them the free publicity they crave so much.
I like you, Matt, and your cousin Jo.
I don't want to read what they have said. I think these kind of people should be ignored.
See, that's just the thing. God, by His very definition, doesn't hate.
Period.
Not my God, anyway.
When I think of Phelps and his vomit-spewing clan of inbreeds, I remember something my grandma once said. She would say, "Billy," (she couldn't remember any of our names) "Billy, when it comes time to sing, an asshole can only fart."
When I think of Phelps, I think this is the face of Evil; sad, sad evil. Indeed, sad lonely evil. These people actually believe they are doing God's work. But it's not our God. They're god should be spelled in all lower case letters. For he, no, it is a god of hate, intolerance, wrath, and the absence of any love. Phelps' god is not our God who gave His only Son to release us from his laws so that we may live by faith. The god that Phelps' believes in is only darkness, void of any love. it is despair.
And so I say, suffocate their hate with love. I remember the people from many walks of life that came together in Reno to drown out a Phelps' funeral protest. The more we sing, the less they'll fart. That is the lesson from this newborn Aries.
Amen.
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