TOLERATING INTOLERANCE

DEAR HYPOCRITICAL, INTOLERANT, NIMBY ASSHOLES: Mind your own business, you self-righteous fucks. So a conservative Christian church is moving into Southeast—what’s it to ya [“Welcome to Mars,” News, Sept 8, regarding the Mars Hill Church moving into Portland]? That’s the beauty of America—people have the freedom to believe any damn fool thing they want. You think focusing your energy on hating them more than they hate you is the best and most productive use of your time? You arrogant fucking asshole—get a fucking hobby. Do you even see the irony here? I thought you were enlightened, but now I see that you only tolerate people being different if they’re different in ways you agree with. You’re a boring, insufferable bigot.

-Anonymous

GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR MARRIAGES!

I think it would be a lot easier—and cost a lot less money—to get the government out of marriage all together [“Gay by Gay,” News, Sept 1, regarding the push for same-sex marriage in Oregon]. That way gays, bi’s, straights, and polyamorous adults could make whatever contracts they wish with one another. Most people historically never looked to government to approve their unions. If the gay community wants to keep spending millions on these campaigns, be my guest, but the libertarian path would get them there much more quickly.

-posted by KingKong DingDong

WHITEY DON’T LIKE THE BUS

It comes down to white middle/upper-class people don’t like riding the bus. And Portland proper is pretty much white-upper-middle-class defined [“Sizing up the Streetcar,” News, Sept 8, regarding whether the Portland Streetcar is on the right development track]. Buses are cheaper to operate, more flexible, can adjust their schedules on the fly far easier than trains, can avoid obstructions, and they don’t all fail when electricity fails or ice storms take out lines (arguable). All in all, the trains are simply there because people with more money refuse to use buses as transportation.

-posted by xx

SPAM OF THE WEEK

DEAR JOURNALIST: We would like to attend you the a new service “Mile High Sex Flight,” offered by Amsterdam escort agency. Please find the press release, logo, and picture attached. If you require any further information what so ever, please do not hesitate to contact us. Best regards.

-Wouter van der Heijden, Girls Company Amsterdam

[Editor’s note: There were no attachments.]

HOW TO “PULLOUT”

DEAR MERCURY: On the cover of your volume 12, number 16 issue, it states there is a “Pullout Guide Inside.” How elated I was to finally have a guide on the subject matter, so I could say, “Fuck off, condoms!” But sadly/tragically/tyrannically, there was no such guide in the issue. WTF BRO? I thought you had my back! I felt like you were going to be there for me, man! Now I’m stuck using fuckin’ jimmies again. Who I gotta hate on to get some justice around here?

-Nathaniel Anderson

THOUGH OUR MENTION of a “Pullout Guide” was actually referring to coverage of MusicfestNW, Nathaniel wins our letter of the week for reminding us that if the Mercury doesn’t inform our readership on the proper methods of coitus interruptus, who will? Expect a “Pullout Pullout Guide” in the near future, while Nathaniel can expect two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater—whose movies always “pull out”… the stops!

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO OUR READERS OVER THE AGE OF 65

Have you read Blogtown lately? You should: It’s kind of kick-assy. portlandmercury.com/blogtown

6 replies on “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR”

  1. “DEAR HYPOCRITICAL, INTOLERANT, NIMBY ASSHOLES: Mind your own business, you self-righteous fucks.”

    I’m sorry, i’m just a tad confused here. Are you talking about CHRISTIANS? B/c it really sounds like you’re talking about christians here.

  2. I think it works like this: Evangelicals move into the “evil” neighborhoods hoping to convert everyone, as is their wont. The weekly sermons rail against the wanton and forbidden evils that those horny and delicious gays are going to introduce to the innocent if they don’t donate to the cause. After a few months all of the fence sitters have been seduced, and the righteous feel vindicated that they’ve indeed chosen the worst possible den of perdition to proselytize, and redouble their efforts. If magical sky fairies were real, they might actually accomplish something. Unfortunately for them, magical sky fairies are not real, and the whole naive church-evil neighborhood dynamic becomes cheap entertainment for hipsters.

  3. Anonymous, from the first letter above-

    You are a hypocrite for condemning decent people’s freedom of speech to protest Mars Hill’s hateful lies, while defending Mars Hill’s supposedly more legitimate freedom of speech to tell these lies.

    You say we are “hating them more than they hate you” which is a lie and an insult to the horrors that gays and others have gone through because of evangelical meanness and lies, especially since our supposed “hate” only consists of truthfully telling them how much hurt they’ve really caused. Unlike what they’ve done to us, we haven’t robbed them of their adolescences, their self-esteem, or their lives, and we have no intention of doing so.

    You, anonymous, are a mean, stupid, hypocritical person with a bad priority of values.

  4. I think, Boofus, the point anonymous was trying to make was that we all have the right to practice and believe whatever we want. If we start saying these people can’t subscribe to their beliefs then that opens the doors to have us all stripped of our own. Hate is hate and persecution is persecution. Forcing your disagreement on them is no different then the other way around. An eye for eye is an incredibly outdated concept. The sooner we all accept that everyone is full of shit, the sooner we can all just mind our own business.

  5. Surewhatever-

    Protesting their meanness and exposing their lies doesn’t keep them from practicing what they want. That is the point I am making about how it isn’t intolerance to fight back verbally, visually, etc. against intolerant people. It isn’t “an eye for an eye” unless I am doing what they are- i.e. trying to convince them they are going to hell for being who they are and converting their sexuality ,etc. It isn’t “an eye for an eye” to stand there on a public right of way outside their church and tell them we’re on to them. Look at the violence against gay youth going on, committed by preachers and school principals, in Tennessee and elsewhere. The meanness can’t go unanswered. Was Rosa Parks just forcing her disagreement on the bus system to be petty and intolerant?

  6. First of all, comparing this situation to Rosa Park’s is just plain ignorant. Comparing your stand against some fools with fanatical opinions to her struggle against a nation of discriminatory laws designed to impoverish and subjugate an entire race of people? I think you might want to sit back and examine how that comparison can be a little unfair. We all want to lose control of the wheel when we see the pro-lifers picketing. We all wanna take Fred Phelps out for a little “hunting accident”. But come on…Rosa Parks? Really?

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