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I was a blue-eyed,
chubby-cheeked five-year-old

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when I joined my family
on the picket line for the first time.

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My mom made me leave
my dolls in the minivan.

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I'd stand on a street corner
in the heavy Kansas humidity

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surrounded by a few dozen relatives

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with my tiny fists clutching
a sign that I couldn't read yet:

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"Gays are worthy of death."

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This was the beginning.

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Our protest soon became a daily occurance
and an international phenomenon,

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and as a member
of Westboro Baptist Church,

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I became a fixture on picket lines
across the country.

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The end of my anti-gay picketing career,

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and life as I knew it,

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came 20 years later,

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triggered in part by strangers on Twitter

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who showed me the power
of engaging the other.

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In my home,

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life was framed as an epic spiritual
battle between good and evil.

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The good was my church and its members,

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and the evil was everyone else.

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My church's antics were such that we
were constantly at odds with the world,

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and that reinforced our
otherness on a daily basis.

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"Make a difference between
the unclean and the clean,"

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the verse says.

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And so we did,

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from baseball games to military funerals,

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we trecked across the country
with neon protest signs in hand

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to tell others exactly
how unclean they were

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and exactly why they were
headed for damnation.

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This was the focus of our whole lives.

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This was the only way for me to do good
in a world that sits in satan's lap.

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And like the rest of my 10 siblings,

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I believed what I was taught
with all my heart,

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and I pursued Westboro's agenda
with a special sort of zeal.

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In 2009, that zeal brought me to Twitter.

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Initially, the people
I encountered on the platform

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were just as hostile as I expected.

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They were the digital version
of the screaming hoards

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I'd been seeing at protests
since I was a kid,

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but in the midst of that digital brawl,

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a strange pattern developed.

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Someone would arrive at my profile
with the usual rage and scorn,

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I would respond with a custom mix
of bible verses, pop culture references

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and smiley faces,

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they would be understandably confused
and caught off-guard,

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but then a conversation would ensue,

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and it was civil --

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full of genuine curiosity on both sides.

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How had the other come to such
outrageous conclusions about the world?

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Sometimes the conversation
even bled into real life.

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People I'd sparred with on Twitter would
come out to the picket line to see me

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when I protested in their city.

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A man named David was one such person.

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He ran a blog called "Jewlicious,"

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and after several months of heated
but friendly arguments online,

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he came out to see me
at a picket in New Orleans.

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He brought me a Middle Eastern
dessert from Jerusalem,

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where he lives,

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and I brought him Kosher chocolate,

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and held a "God hates Jews" sign.

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(Laughter)

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There was no confusion
about our positions,

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but the line between friend
and foe was becoming blurred.

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We'd started to see each other
as human beings,

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and it changed the way
we spoke to one another.

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It took time,

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but eventually these conversations
planted seeds of doubt in me.

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My friends on Twitter took the time
to understand Westboro's doctrines,

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and in doing so,

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they were able to find inconsistencies
I'd missed my entire life.

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Why did we advocate
the death penalty for gays

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when Jesus said, "Let he who is without
sin cast the first stone?"

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How could we claim to love our neighbor

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while at the same time praying
for god to destroy them?

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The truth is that the care shown to me
by these strangers on the Internet

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was itself a contradiction.

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It was growing evidence

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that people on the other side were not
the demons I'd been led to believe.

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These realizations were life-altering.

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Once I saw that we were not
the ultimate arbiters of divine truth

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but flawed human beings,

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I couldn't pretend otherwise.

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I couldn't justify our actions --

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especially our cruel practice
of protesting funerals,

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and celebrating human tragedy.

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These shifts in my perspective

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contributed to a larger erosion
of my trust in my church,

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and eventually it made it
impossible for me to stay.

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In spite of overwhelming grief and terror,

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I left Westboro in 2012.

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In those days just after I left,

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the instinct to hide
was almost paralyzing.

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I wanted to hide from
the judgement of my family,

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who I knew would never
speak to me again --

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people whose thoughts and opinions
had meant everything to me.

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And I wanted to hide from the world
I'd rejected for so long.

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People who had no reason at all
to give me a second chance

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after a lifetime of antagonism,

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and yet,

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unbelievably,

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they did.

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The world had access to my past
because it was all over the Internet --

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thousands of tweets
and hundreds of interviews,

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everything from local TV news
to the Howard Stern show --

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but so many embraced me
with open arms anyway.

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I wrote an apology
for the harm I'd caused,

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but I also knew that an apology
could never undo any of it.

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All I could do was
try to build a new life,

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and find a way somehow
to repair some of the damage.

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People had every reason
to doubt my sincerity,

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but most of them didn't.

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And giving my history,

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it was more than I could've hoped for --

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forgiveness and the benefit of the doubt.

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It still amazes me.

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I spent my first year away from home
adrift with my younger sister,

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who had chosen to leave with me.

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We walked into an abyss,

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but we were shocked to find
the light and a way forward

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in the same communities
we'd targeted for so long.

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David,

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my "Jewlicious" friend from Twitter,

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invited us to spend time among
a Jewish community in Los Angeles.

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We slept on couches in the home
of a Hasidic Rabbi, his wife

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and their four kids.

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The same rabbi that I'd protested
three years earlier

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with a sign that said,

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"Your Rabbi is a whore."

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(Laughter)

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We spent long hours talking about
theology and Judaism and life

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while we washed dishes
in their Kosher kitchen,

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and chopped vegetables for dinner.

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They treated us like family.

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They held nothing against us.

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And again I was astonished.