This is not what love looks like.

I don't usually cry at things. Don't cry at movies, or at books.

But this...wow. This has got me bawling.

How...how could somebody do something like that?

 

I read this earlier, looking at coming out letters. What a douche.

 

I saw this on Huffington Post. This makes me sick. Because your child's gay doesn't make you a failure as a parent, if you don't accept your gay child, that makes you a failed parent.

 

I saw this earlier...

I don't understand how a parent can disown their child just because they are LGBT. I don't understand how a parent, who raised that child, can just say "don't talk to me ever again".

The sad thing is that the parents that send these kinds of letter don't realize that they are the problem... their child is just telling them how they are, it's not like they chose to be something that would cause them to be disowned by their parents..

 

I can't cry over stories like these, just because they don't usually get me emotional enough to. But it is a really sad story. I think the part that bothers me is the fact that while this reaction is not unheard of... it's the fact that it's written in a letter. We, the closeted ones, come out through letters when we're unable to have the courage to say something difficult to the ones we love. Does the same apply here? Is he letting his values get the best of his opinion on someone he loves?

 

It's hard for me to grasp things like this because I can't imagine anything my children could do to make me not love them, or write a letter like this. & I don't even have children. |:
I wouldn't be able to handle something like that, but I feel so grateful to have parents I know would still love and support me if I came out.

 

wow... ugh that makes my stomach cramp... arrgh thats making me nervous about telling my mom ( want to tell her f2f and not a letter, but we live 2000 miles apart )

 

Wow that's just so horrible

Letters like these make me feel like really just doing something, getting up raising awareness or I don't know. But how many more childrens hearts will have to be broken like this day after day & for how long.

 

I just hope that James, wherever and whoever he is, has found the support and strength he needs to keep going and is living a happy, successful life. I hope his father has come to regret his decision to abandon his child, and that the young man who was abandoned is strong enough to keep moving forwards in happiness and health and to find his own self-esteem, separate from his parents.

 

>choosing your religion over your children

That's some fine parenting work there, Lou.

 

That is just terrible. Can't imagine how it feels to be Jason :'(

 

I wonder what went on in this man's mind as he was processing the news that his son is gay. Did he think, "all these years of raising him to be a fine young man, and he goes and betrays all my hard work by being gay?", or "I don't want to tarnish my image among my friends of being an upstanding Christian with strong traditional values, so I can't let any of them know that my son is gay"?

Whatever the thought process might have been, the conclusion is not one any dad who loves his son unconditionally (as parents should) would ever imagine being able to CONSIDER, much less go through with.

As long as the NOMs and the AFAs and the Chick-fil-As promote those falsehoods that homosexuality is just as bad as incest, prostitution, pornography, rape, etc., this will just continue.

 

A parent's love for their kid is supposed to be unconditional, and this dad fails as a parent for not having unconditional love for his son. That's all I have to say about it, apart from how sad/appalled this letter makes me feel

 

I've become so disillusioned and cynical about the internet and "virals" that I tend to read things like this with a pinch of salt.

Having said that, I wouldn't wish this response on anyone BUT in cases when this happens, I can assure you, in the long run, the disowned child is better off without that parent/family.

 

It's so sad that parents don't support their children in a such a difficult time. I was so fortunate that my family was so accepting of me when I came out.

What really galls me is that he uses God as his reason for rejecting his child. When he said "God did not intend for this unnatural lifestyle" he is putting words in God's mouth. How presumptuous and infuriating that he can claim to know what God is thinking.

All I know is that we are all put on this earth for a reason, and maybe, just maybe, homosexuality (and bisexuality, and transexuality, and pansexuality and any other word you can put in front of sexuality) exists as a focused reminder that there are bigger things that we need to focus attention on than who our children choose to love.

Thanks for the post, it inspired a ton of emotions, but most of all it made me think.

 

I can't see how or why you would disown your child after raising them and loving them for so long. They're still them, nothing changed. They come out to you and you cut all ties with them because of that? If this is actually true, then I think James is better off without him because after all, family doesn't end with blood.

I remember I saw a quote somewhere that someone said: "The best thing you can do for your child is take them for who they are."