Now, to show how far behind I fell over the last few weeks

"Pastor John" "came out of the closet" recently, confirming that his blog was a farce. I'm sure many remember that I was among the saps that fell for this blog (though I was, thankfully, shifted towards the belief that it was fake), and there were many others. This is the first time that I am posting a link to the blog, but, to keep things simple, I will post his final reply, and my response following it.

Pastor John is no more. It's been a fun ride, but as the commenters have noted, it's degenerated into nonsense.

FAQ:

Is this real?
Yes, it's almost real. For the past 5 months, I've been receiving emails from a right-wing lunatic named Henry John Divorski. I've posted many of those emails on this blog, with little more than small modifications (to make it work as a blog). As far as I know, the guy who is emailing me doesn't know I've been posting his emails.

Who are you?
I'm a gay man from Southern California who loves politics and took an interest in Virginia elections since there isn't much else going on right now. I'm an independent and don't really vote for either party regularly.

So this is real?
God you're dumb. Did you actually fall for that Henry John Divorski story? What part of "i've seen four men wrestle a mountain lion to the ground and rip off it's head" sounded real to you? That was my favorite line, by the way. Second favorite line: "these free loaders are floating up from mexico, stealing children, then trading them on the black market for illegal drugs and big sombreros." For an amusing discussion of whether this is real or not, go here.

What was the point of this blog?
I'm constantly amused by the use of the phrase "the homosexual agenda" by politicians on the right. I wanted to satirize this phrase and get a good laugh out of it. A couple of my friends contributed to this blog and stepped out of character occasionally - that's why it's a bit uneven towards the end. I ran out of jokes, too.

Are the comments real?
Many of the comments are fake. For example, the comments that said "TAKE THIS DOWN NOW!!" were written by me. Some of the comments were pretty offensive. That's another reason why I'm quitting while I'm ahead. I don't want this to turn into some sort of HQ for Christian bashing or racism. I'm fairly religious (Lutheran) I'm strongly opposed to such talk.

Why did you post on my blog? Why didn't you just stick to yours?
I never would have received as many hits as I did if I didn't post on your publicly available blog. It got up to about 3000 a day for a while, then slowed down as my jokes became lamer. Oh well. Many of you who visited me may never read this. Special thanks to Dailykos.com, Mydd.com, FreeRepublic.com, and patriotboy.blogspot.com for directing traffic to this site.

Well Virginia, take care, and enjoy repressing homosexuals! We don't mind it, actually. Most of us get a kick out of it.

Posting someone else's e-mails without their knowledge? I won't make any excuses for someone blaming all the evils of the world on homosexuals. However, posting all those e-mails without his permission is classless. While Henry might have said all these things to others anyway, the e-mails were written and intended for you only.

You also fooled many people into thinking that this site was real, extremely dishonest. I know, you say that those who believed it are "dumb" (I myself must claim to be "dumb" then as well), but we'd be dumber to think that you weren't intending to fool anyone.

Perhaps you were trying to prove something about those on the far right. But you also proved something about yourself; you are not trustworthy, which is just as bad as someone who discriminates against others. You, a Lutheran, a Christian (as you claim) should know that dishonesty is wrong, even if you don't feel the same way about homosexuality.

I'd say I'm angry at you, but I simply have too much pity on you to be mad.

Can I prove that he was out to get conservatives? Absolutely not, but "Pastor John" did prove himself, in many areas, to be a hypocrite. I also can say that, yes, I am actually a bit mad. I know, I'm breaking one of John Hawkin's cardinal rules:

23) Avoid blogging angry. It may save you a lot of grief.

What is the lesson from all this?
1) A blogs purpose is usually to gain interest from those on one side politically, or convince members on the other. A blog that isolates those on both is either fake or not worth reading.
2) "Pastor John" is correct in one area; controversy brings hits. However, it doesn't always mean reliability.
3) Be careful who you believe in blogs. There are plenty of honest bloggers out there who are not deceptional.

In the future, I will remember these lessons. I will also take Mr. Hawkin's 23rd hint more seriously as well.