A Teen’s Brave Response to “I’m Christian, Unless You’re Gay”

[kpete]

Last edited Mon Apr 9, 2012, 04:31 PM - Edit history (1)

I am gay and only my one friend knows so far. My mom doesn’t know yet. My dad doesn’t know yet. You didn’t know it when you gave us this homework. I am only 15 years old and I have never felt so alone. My mom and dad always are being angry about gay people and talking about how they are bad and going to hell and they also always talk about how all the gays should be shipped off to their own private island or something so that the rest of us could live God’s commandments in peace.

I have been so scared of them finding out that I’m gay because I know that they would hate me and would want me out of their life and at the same time I can’t keep this secret anymore because it is not something I asked for, never in a million years would I ask to be gay in a town like this where everybody would hate me. And anyways I can’t keep this secret anymore because I’m about to do something crazy like run away or hurt myself or something. I just want to be dead sometimes.

And then you gave us the assignment to write this essay for our homework and I read it like ten times I even skipped lunch and just kept reading it in the bathroom and by the time I went home I decided that maybe I am only 15 years old but maybe this town will change if I can be honest about who I am and maybe my family will change if I can be honest about who I am with them too. I don’t see why I don’t deserve love just like everyone else. I see some crazy stuff that so many people do and people still love them but for some reason everybody around here thinks its ok to hate gays and stuff. And I don’t know really I think I just realize that I don’t want to be Jacob in ten years and still live my life in secret and scared of being hated.

So I go home and I tell my mom to read this handout you gave us and she got so mad at me and started going crazy about how evil gays are and how all of this was just the devil spreading his work and everything else she said. But this time I just got mad myself and I got so mad because I suddenly realize that this is the woman that my whole life made me go to church where they talk about love just like the writer said but she and every other person I pretty much know just hate so many people especially gay people. So I got madder and madder and madder and then I snuck out and came to my friends house to write this essay because its time to stop letting people’s hate stop me from being happy. I mean should I really have to hate my life and want to die because other people are so hating?

And I don’t know what will happen but I am done playing like I’m something I’m not and if my parents don’t love me anymore because of this then I realize that’s not my problem and it will hurt but not as much as the way I hurt right now. I feel like if my mom and dad would just think about things they’d realize that what they always say and how they always hate gays is not what Jesus would do and maybe there is a chance that they will some day love me like Jesus would. I am their kid afterall.

Tonight I am going to send this to my mom and see what she says I guess. I don’t know what will happen but I know that I deserve to be loved just like everybody else does I just hope she thinks so too.

............................

the rest:
http://www.danoah.com/2012/04/a-teens-brave-response-to-im-christian-unless-youre-gay.html
http://www.danoah.com/2011/11/im-christian-unless-youre-gay.html

[MineralMan]

1. I really hope that really happened, after reading the entire entry

in that blog. I'm not sure, though, that it did. Still, it's a great story, and is exactly how things should go, so maybe it doesn't matter.

Sadly, I know of many cases where it did not go that way at all.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. My guess is that I know more coming out stories than you do, and this is not uncommon.

My parents were not freaked out when I came out. They asked me, I said yep and that was that. They knew who to add to the holiday dinner list. Done.
Few people today are tied up in the 'God in the Mix' sort of pro discrimination theology the President is into.
Top reaction to coming out:
'I wondered when you would finally tell me.'
"Your grandma always said so."
"As long as you adopt some kids"
"As long as you are happy."
"What took you so long?"
"My doctor is single, and I think he's gay.....'

[MineralMan]

7. I certainly hope so. In this particular

story, it seemed like the parent was very LGBT negative, so the turnaround was a little surprising. But, I'm glad it ended that way.

On the flip side, though, my wife's cousin, who is in his 50s, came out many, many years ago. His own parents were supportive, and reacted very well, but his aunts and uncles reacted very badly and have shunned him and his partner of 25 years ever since. Sadly, his father, my wife's uncle, died just two weeks ago. At the funeral, Bob, my wife's cousin gave the eulogy, in which one of the things he praised about his father was his ready acceptance of Bob and his partner. Two of his father's brothers walked out of the funeral at that point. Decades have passed since Bob originally came out, but the hatred and bitterness of his two uncles has never flagged.

I hope the story related in the OP is true. It may well be, and it is exactly how such things should go, although the original trashing of LGBT people by his own family should never have happened.

[The Doctor.]

15. Never miss a chance to slam Obama...

No matter how dishonestly.

[dbackjon]

9. When I came out, attitudes of many of my friends and family changed dramatically

Most had never "known" a gay person - before, we were just an abstract.

Having a personal connection to someone that is gay can challenge what you THOUGHT you knew/believed.

[tblue37]

18. They had never "known" a gay person, but probably they actually knew severa. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Mother and son are courageous people....

I know so many stories like this one. The way the mother puts it at the end is a profound yet common reaction to truth and acceptance:
"I never knew how unhappy he was until I could finally see how happy he could be."

[JNelson6563]

4. That which our own kids teach us

are some of the most profound lessons we ever learn. Great stuff, thanks for bringing it here. Perhaps there is hope for the human race after all....

Julie

[1monster]

5. Read, Recommended, Reposted on Facebook, and Kicked.

RRRFK

[YellowRubberDuckie]

16. Ditto...

...and cross posted to this great Facebook page called the Christian Left.

[wellstone dem]

17. Love the Christian Left!

Just had to say so.

[chervilant]

6. Thanks so much for this post,

I have also reposted to FB, and a *BIG* K&R, too.

[Brigid]

8. No words.

Just a huge K & R.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. This is a wonderful story, but not likely authentic

The writing in the essay is what a grown up who knows how to write would imagine a 15 year old boy's writing to look like.

I don't doubt that this sort of thing happens a lot. But that prose doesn't pass the smell test. I'd also suggest that whoever wrote the "Mom" part also wrote the "teenager" part.

[thesquanderer]

13. I think you're right, it seems fake

re: "I'd also suggest that whoever wrote the "Mom" part also wrote the "teenager" part."

yeah... both of them say "madder and madder" for one thing!

Also, a 15 year old is unlikely to talk about his mother as "the woman who..."

etc.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. I hesitate to use this example, but will as pure analogy

A letter written by Jack the Ripper used the word "knif." Detectives reasoned that somebody who actually didn't know how to spell knife would have made an error in the other direction, as "nife," or "nif." The error was too literate to be an authentic error; it was made by somebody who had seen the word in writing a lot. I think the same is true here. There is an overuse of asyndeton passing for what the writer thinks is a "run on" (since, presumably, 15 year olds write a lot of run on sentences, or something); there is correct punctuation where there shouldn't be, given the other "errors" in the letter; and, as you point out, there are rather dramatic correspondences in style between two putatively different writers. No. I don't buy it.

[immoderate]

12. My brother came out when he was 14. During the 60s.

I was a hippie and already tending toward a "live and let live" attitude, but knowing he was gay changed my attitude. (I also had my consciousness raised about "chicks," even though I was pretty progressive along those lines as well.)

Knowing opened us up to more communication, let us share our thoughts better. Once at a family gathering at my cousin Bob's (he married in) his brother in law and my cousin, Michael complained he was cold and asked that a window be shut. Bob's response was, "What are you -- a faggot?"

My brother sat up in his chair, and casting me a side glance, said, "Hey, I'm not cold."

You had to be there. My brother was taken before they found a way to deal with AIDS, along with some other dear friends who didn't make it.


--imm

[Skittles]

19. .