When Your Child Comes Out of the Closet

This article is dedicated to Ron who ended his life in March of 2000 when he could no longer live with the rejection of his family, when they could not accept his news that he was gay. He was told his lifestyle was an abomination to God, and that he would not go to heaven. He lived with this rejection as long as he could, and then one day he chose not to live with it anymore. His memory was neatly tucked away in the recesses of my mind until a friend jogged my memory with her own story of when her son decided he had to live his authentic life, and come out of the closet.

First, I would like to acknowledge that no one chooses to be gay. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to live in a society that, for the most part, does not accept you for the person you are. You are so often defined by who you sleep with, and not for the person you really are inside. No one should be defined by their sexuality. We are all people, we should be defined as the people we are, by the accomplishments we have made, and by the friends that we have. We should be defined by who we are, and not what others think we are.

Moms, dads, sisters, and brothers, if you truly love your family members that confess to you that they are gay, you will accept them, without judgment. Everyone is not wired the same way, and condemning them for being attracted to the people they isn't going to help your relationship with them. Making them feel bad for telling you who they really are will only push them away. Telling them that they are going to bust hell wide open isn't going to change them from being who they are. Our Christian society has done a fair job of forcing gay men and women to stay in the closet. How can it be safe to come out when you will be beat over the head with scriptures about Sodom and Gomorrah, and about the Sodomites of the bible. I was taught that the term "sodomite" was a term for homosexual. It wasn't until someone explained to me that a Sodomite was someone from the city of Sodom, and there are no "sodomites" because the city of Sodom no longer exists. It makes me wonder why such terms are still used in today's language in reference to gay people.