Grant Chisholm.JPG

Grant Chisholm says his business and his heart are hurt after The Daily Beast dubbed him "The Hipster Fred Phelps."

(Casey Parks/The Oregonian)

The Daily Beast article dubbing Grant Chisholm “

” got him all wrong, the industrial antique dealer said this week.

Yes, he wears $350 boots and sells wares to some of Portland’s hippest spots. And yes, he’s a street preacher who hopes every strip club in town shuts down.

But hateful? That’s just not him, he says.

Among the article’s accusations: Chisholm’s God hates football, “homosex” and probably Portland itself. The article's title linked Chisholm with Phelps, the outspoken preacher from Kansas who protests military funerals and gay pride events.

Chisholm, 36, is feeling the hate himself now. After the news website ran a profile of Chisholm nearly two weeks ago, vintage stores have called for a boycott, online commenters have called him names, and his business has slowed. Chisholm said he doesn’t care about the money. He grew up poor and, he said, can pull himself from rags to riches again if needed. He just wants to be understood.

“I love this city,” he said. “Most of the people I hang around don’t agree with me. I love that.”

Chisholm grew up on the outer edges of Portland, just off Southeast Foster Boulevard. His mother was a hippie, his father a “hellfire and damnation” preacher and part-time junker. Chisholm took up both trades -- preaching and shopping salvage yards for potential treasures he could resell -- when he turned 19.

Grant Chisholm says his business and his heart are hurt after The Daily Beast dubbed him "The Hipster Fred Phelps." He sells industrial antiques in his shop along the SE waterfront.

Chisholm has spent the last two decades trolling garage sales, dumpsters and salvage yards for rustic industrial pieces . These days, he sells pricey pieces out of a 20,000-square-foot

on the southeast waterfront. He’s outfitted some of Portland’s hippest spots, though he won’t name names for fear that people will boycott those businesses, too. Last year, he

, a quasi-hotel and event space in St. Johns, with all its Tumblr-ready furniture.

And

, the reporter who profiled Chisholm on The Daily Beast, said

told her he bought his furniture from Chisholm. The Portlandia actor didn’t know, O’Hara said, that Chisholm spends his free time preaching on the streets.

“I just thought it was interesting that a lot of people didn’t know that,” said O’Hara, a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and former Portlander. “He lives these two separate lives.”

Chisholm said he was as “excited as a kid with a new BMX bike” when O’Hara approached him about an article. He’s proud of his business and proud of the preaching he does outside Portland strip clubs. But when The Daily Beast published O’Hara’s Dec. 8 piece -- and Portlanders began planning boycotts -- Chisholm said he felt like he had received a BMX with flat tires.

“I’ve cried a lot about this article,” he said. “The stuff people say about me is so hurtful.”

The article paints Chisholm as a man of conviction, a man unafraid to judge others. He believes in a harsh God who, he said, expects people to repent for their sins.

“For every 100 Christians you have who tell you God loves you and thinks you’re wonderful, you have to have a guy like me to balance the teeter-totter and say, ‘God wants you to repent,’” he said. “If you’re a liar, stop being a liar. If you’re a hypocrite, stop being a hypocrite.”

Those convictions have taken Chisholm across the country to protest outside gay bars and strip clubs. Still, Chisholm felt the article didn’t capture his real spirit.

Even if all the facts are straight, seeing yourself in print can be hard for anyone. Chisholm said a few of the profile’s paragraphs stung.

His mom is a lesbian. His sister, too. He usually doesn’t bring up the topic of homosexuality, he said, though he appears in a

outside CC Slaughters, the downtown gay bar. He declined to talk with The Oregonian about homosexuality, though he said he's never used the phrase "homosex."

He’s most upset that The Daily Beast linked him with Fred Phelps, the Westboro Baptist Church preacher who has garnered national attention protesting military funerals and proclaiming that “God hates fags.” Phelps, whom Chisholm mistakenly called Phillips in a interview, is “a horrible person,” Chisholm said. “He’s a hate-monger. I absolutely despise his existence.”

O’Hara said she taped the interview and fact-checked extensively after writing it. O’Hara submitted the article under the title “There’s No Party in Hell.” An editor rebranded the story “The Hipster Fred Phelps.”

O’Hara did write in the profile that Chisholm is “eager to distinguish his crew from Phelps’s church,” but Phelps and Chisholm are both aggressive and prone to hollering out incendiary one-liners, she said.

The comparison struck a chord with Portlanders. One Pearl vintage shop organized a citywide boycott, Chisholm said, and others have lashed out online. Business was down $10,000 this week, he said.

Chisholm said Wednesday that people often take him out of context. Yes, sometimes he’s over-the-top; his volume and tone can reach Gilbert Gottfried proportions. He admits he’s confrontational and judgmental. But he’s just as often quiet, humbled by long conversations and measured debate, he said.

Still, he admits: “I love controversy. I love arguing. I love being in people’s face because then I see more evidence of lives being changed than I ever did handing out sandwiches or free haircuts.”

He’s lived in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas -- all places with a higher percentage of churchgoers than Portland. He lives in Portland, he said, because it has so many people who are different from him. It used to be the kind of place that inspired great discussions. These days, Chisholm said, he rarely preaches in town.

“This city doesn’t play fair anymore,” he said. “This is a liberal city that says they honor tolerance and diversity until a guy like me stands on the corner.”

-- Casey Parks