with the master of hate himself Fred Phelps. My family lived in a redneck community where I got outed. I had made the mistake of telling someone I thought was a close friend, at 14 years old, that when I grew up I wanted to marry another man.
Life went straight to shit for me from that day until I ran away from that hell at 16 for my own survival.
And Fred F@cking Phelps was part of the problem. As some of his extended family lived in the town I went to school, I was "invited to a party in my honor". I smelled a rat when my Phelps friend said his uncle wanted to meet and talk to me, but curiosity killed my cat. I went at the appointed time.
It was an absolute hate-fest. A ceremony of laughter and vile, idiotic and ritualistic derogatory "condemning my soul to hell". There was nothing even remotely "christian" about this gathering, to my remote understanding of it. Just Fred spitting in my face as he yelled about my being a child of satan at the top of his lungs as the family gathered all around chimed in with holy epithets. Needless to say I made my way out the door in less than a minute.
Fred Phelp's family also saw to it that my life at that school would become unbearable from then on. I cannot even count the times that "faggot" replaced my name. I had bruises, cuts and fractures from being pushed, kicked, hit, shoved, tripped and tortured daily. And as far as everyone in that town was concerned, the "city slicker" that their parents warned them all not to associate with became the devil himself to burn.
When I finally made it all the way to San Francisco, I found a freeway bridge to sleep out of the rain, and eat the damaged package of Lorna Doone cookies I'd dug out of a dumpster on the way. I was filthy, hungry, totally alone and felt as though I was the only one in the world like me, as far as I knew. To this day I don't know what drew me to go to San Francisco, but it turned out to be my lifesaver at the kindly hands of an aged pedophile who eventually took me in.
I contemplated suicide, Freds unholy words echoing to me, convinced that perhaps the world would do better without this "faggot".
No I cannot imagine how horrible a full Phelps upbrining would be, compared to my parents who neglected my needs, the abusive part probably would have left me hanging from a rope from a freeway overpass just south of here.
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