Came out over the pulpit this weekend

My Father passed away this last week. I delivered the eulogy at his funeral this last weekend. He was an amazing man and I had lots of great stories to tell about what a kind, funny, decent man he was. One of them was how he handled my coming out.

This Mormon, suburbanite Republican didn't just take my coming out in stride in the early nineties. About a week later my Father came to me in tears asking for my forgiveness. I didn't know what he was talking about. Well a few days before I told my parents we had been out shopping. They bought me a new coat and there was a gay couple in front of us in line. Twenty-three years ago in Utah this was unusual. My father made a comment. It wasn't hateful. It wasn't over the top—it was sort of casually derogatory. I honestly hadn't thought much about it. But apparently for the last week, my Father had thought of little else. It tore him up inside. He couldn't bear the thought that in the years to come when people said that sort of thing about me, when they said that sort of thing to me that I might think that he thought it was alright. It broke his heart to think that when people said things like that that I might think that he thought that they were right. He said he'd been ignorant and unkind, that it had been unchristian and he hadn't known what he was talking about.. He said that he would understand if I couldn't forgive him. But of course I could. He was a remarkable man.

Anyway, the funeral took place in Salt Lake City, UT and I haven't lived there in 25 years. There were a bunch of people there I'd never met, a bunch I hadn't seen in 25 years and a whole bunch that I had seen exactly once in the last 25 years (my Mother's funeral). So for the story to make sense they would need a little context, and so I found myself saying, over the pulpit where I had attended church as a child, "I have a wonderful life, full of love, friends, family and joy. But it's not the life my Father planned for me. It's not a life that he could have even imagined as I was growing up. But my Father was always there for me. He cried with me when things went wrong and I think he took more pleasure in my joy than even I did. I'm gay. My partner of 17 years is here with me today. My parents loved him like another son." Then I went on to tell the story.

I honestly didn't think much about it. It wasn't about me it was about what an amazing man he was. I don't think I really realized what I had done until people started to pull me aside, starting with the funeral director, to tell me how much they enjoyed the eulogy, how powerful it had been and how courageous I was. I didn't actually realize what they were talking about until about the fifth person used either the word brave or courageous. So, despite, being out to pretty much everyone for 23 years or so, until this weekend I've only ever really come out to two people, my parents. Everyone else I just let find out. Well I guess now I have to add a few hundred more people to the list.