Illustration by Mario Wagner
Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Out's resident columnist provocateur, has been raising more eyebrows than usual with his strident call for the gay community's financial support of one of our most loathed enemies: Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps.
But the best part of this story all happened after the article was turned in: Josh and Shirley Phelps-Roper, the main man's daughter, struck up an old-fashioned epistolary friendship. (Read a little about it here, on the Phags for Phelps website.)
Josh and I chatted about his most unlikely of bedfellows over IM:
Popnog: Tell me about how you Shirley became pen pals.
Josh Kilmer-Purcell: Well, because I'd written my Out column advocating a Phelps Dephense Phund, I felt it would be hypocritical of me not to donate something myself. I sent them a check for $100, which was returned with a letter that cited three pages of scripture about how a church needs nothing it can't provide itself. I asked for clarity, whether or not they would take money from a heterosexual, and Shirley responded that they wouldn't. I admired that, so I responded to tell her so. She told me about an upcoming picket of the Pope in New York City and asked if I knew of any busy intersections where they could picket. Since the Pope is no friend of mine, either, I made some suggestions and told her I was gonna come down and meet her. I also invited her to stay at my farm in upstate New York should she ever protest the state legislature. Perhaps it should be stated that my reasoning behind all this is that I believe that the Phelps' message is so repugnantly homophobic that it
actually helps GLBT causes. Shirley is aware of my beliefs and
reasoning.
How much do you talk about your own gay life with her?
Well, one of the first things I realized was that our husbands share the same first name. We both talked about how much we respectively put our poor husbands through, she with her high profile preaching, and me with my propensity to share every little dirty secret with my readers. She knows what my husband does for a living, and that he's also said that she and her family are welcome to visit.
What else has happened since the piece was written?
My biggest surprise was when I got an email from Shirley's brother, who has been completely estranged from the family and their church for decades. He wanted to show support for Phags For Phelps. (He is heterosexual.) I've been having a good time emailing Shirley, but when he wrote it gave me a little pause. Exactly two minutes after he wrote me to express support, I got an email from Shirley telling me that she was on the way to the hospital to help deliver her latest grandchild. I sat there, staring at the two emails, one on top of another, realizing that these two estranged siblings would never be any closer than they were at that minute, in my inbox. It was sad.
Okay, way to break my fucking heart, Josh. But -- a great example of why you are clearly on a mission from someone, if not God, to do this kind of work.
I did tell Nate that he had a new great nephew. And I do have very strong religious beliefs, but I don't share them with Shirley. There's no point really. Oh, but, I take that back... I did tell Shirley that I was Episcopalian, and she replied that being gay and Episcopalian was a redundancy.
How are you able to stay so calm through this? I think for many the idea of even being in the same city as a Phelps family member is enough to set them screaming and throwing things. It can be very destructive for queer people to be surrounded by such homophobic rhetoric. How are you keeping the balance?
If anything, corresponding with Shirley has made me less agitated about them. She's a person, not a caricature. And I believe that she's a victim of a skewed belief system. Of course she believes the same of me. Once I accept that, Shirley's just a funny friend, with a hilarious sense of humor. In the few joint interviews that she does, she agrees with me on
several points, as I do her. She's a lawyer, remember. She's not stupid.
Do you think she respects you, as a person?
Yep.
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Watch Popnography and PhagsForPhelps.com for more updates on this queer pairing.
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