We know that we’ve done and said things that hurt people. Inflicting pain on others wasn’t the goal, but it was one of the outcomes. We wish it weren’t so, and regret that hurt.

We know that we dearly love our family. They now consider us betrayers, and we are cut off from their lives, but we know they are well-intentioned. We will never not love them.

We know that we can’t undo our whole lives. We can’t even say we’d want to if we could; we are who we are because of all the experiences that brought us to this point. What we can do is try to find a better way to live from here on. That’s our focus.

Up until now, our names have been synonymous with “God Hates Fags.” Any twelve-year-old with a cell phone could find out what we did. We hope Ms. Kyle was right about the other part, too, though – that everything sticks – and that the changes we make in our lives will speak for themselves.

The Daily Dot got a response from Phelps-Roper’s aunt, Margie Phelps, who is perhaps the most-known figure of the church outside of founder Fred Phelps. In a statement, she criticized them for going down this path. “Given the zeitgeist of proud sin that permeates the land,” she wrote in an e-mail, “the miracle is the young people who do the opposite – who serve God, and reject the filthy manner of life of this nation.”