I had to survive homeless after relatives of the Phelp's clan had brought their uncle "Fred" to town, to hold a jaw-droppingly ignorant "send the faggot sinner to hell" ceremony in my honor. It was 1974, homosexuality had recently been removed from the DSM. I endured social isolation and daily physical bullying, and it was the local "good christian southern baptists" that maintained my own ostracization from the community. I was the only known gay person in a community I've never returned to since I ran away to San Francisco in 1976. I've had to deal with the consequences of a bad start to my adult live ever since and deal with very similar PTSD as those who endured these "therapies".
Had one of these quack groups existed in the area, my parents would surely have sent me for such torture.
It's long past time people who believe they are going to bring back some 1950's ideal "beaver-cleaver" society were not only placed in the halls of shameful history, but also made to pay reparations for lives they've damaged.
It makes me cringe with nauseated disgust that Westboro and ilk hasn't been sued for every damn dime they have by the distress, impoverishment, ostracization and attempts to marginalize LGBT, or suggest horrific nazi-style genocide.
Here it is, 2018, and we're still reading about case after case of face-palmingly ignorant organized xenophobia, even have witnessed the power of the mob mentality that placed the Orange xenophobe in chief in office.
I escaped a relatively certain Matthew Shepard-esque fate at the hands of one of these hate groups. If I don't see the rightward swing of the socio-political pendulum reversed in our next two election cycles, I must admit I'm done with the U.S.A., 2020 will be nearing my retirement time and I don't want to stay in a country that seems to be trying to revive the damn stone age.
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