The car I owned when I lived in Columbus, Ohio was liberally (heh) decorated with bumper stickers. I occasionally got some heat from passersby about the “Come the Rapture, Can I Have Your Car?” and “The Religious Right is Neither” ones, and the Darwin fish. Fair enough, they’re kind of snarky. Astoundingly (to me at the time) the sticker that got the most negative comments was the one I picked up while I was volunteering with Open Hand, a nonprofit that delivers meals to homebound people with AIDS. It said “Love Shouldn’t Kill. Help Prevent and Cure AIDS.” In any sane and humane world, there should be nothing controversial about that sticker, but more than one person stopped to snarl, “That’s not love!” and worse. At the time, I was even more poorly equipped for off-the-cuff verbal argument than I am now, and my best responses were usually along the lines of “Of course it is!” or “How would you know?” delivered to a retreating back.

Via Pandagon, an exquisite pictoral response to a letter which would have made me blither incoherently-and uselessly-with rage.

Note:Many old comments were lost in a database crash in 2008. Some conversations may seem to make less sense than they would have. A few will make more sense now.

1. 
   Chris Clarke 2005 08 17 at 6:39:06 pm

   You read my mind, Stephanie. I saw that this afternoon and was quite moved.

2. 
   the_bone 2005 08 17 at 11:02:32 pm

   My brother has a great bumper sticker that says “JESUS HELPS ME TRICK PEOPLE” (from this online comic strip).  He’ll occasionally get confronted by perplexed Christians in parking lots.  I suggested once that, rather than argue with those folks, that he simply tell them “It’s an exercise in phenomenology” and leave it at that.  He’s begun doing so, further adding to their bewilderment.

3. 
   TroutGrrrl 2005 08 19 at 1:33:47 am

   Thanks for the link.  Jason wrote/depicted the perfect response to a crazy assertion, not easy to accomplish.

4. 
   Sara 2005 08 19 at 1:41:05 pm

   Thanks, Stephanie.  That is indeed a beautiful thing.  :)  Thank you so much for spreading it around.

5. 
   Rana 2005 08 19 at 3:11:36 pm

   What a wonderful post!  :)

6. 
   Chrunemyr 2005 08 30 at 4:24:31 am

   Yeah, I had a car like that once. It had things like “Eat People, Not Animals” and “Real Men Wear Skirts” as well as the obligatory rainbow flags & pink triangles and a Clergy sticker. It got vandalized about every 6 months or so.

   I used to travel around to different churches in those days. Always got a kick of watching the people behind me as I turned into the church lot. I could just imagine them thinking, “That must be a VERY liberal church!”