Parents of LGBTQ Children

Parents have been on my mind a lot lately. It all started last week when I was visiting my mom and she was sharing a rather exciting moment with me. A classmate in one of her classes asked her if she had ever seen “Brokeback Mountain.” As she was proudly sharing the romantic plot of the movie one her male colleagues interrupted her to say that movie was about “two cowboys that go camping to become fags.” This was the first time my mom has ever been faced with having to respond to the use of anti-gay epithets. She firmly stood up and looked the gentleman in the eyes and assertively told him, “I don’t like that word.” He replied, “Well they are fags!” She then said, “My son is gay and I love him very much. That word, ‘fag,’ is dirty, violent, harmful, and I’m not going to let you or anyone insult my son, my family, and the many other LGBT people that we are all connected with. Now, like I said, ‘I don’t like that word.’” The gentleman quickly backed down and apologized many, many times. The class applauded and quickly people started sharing with her about their gay relatives.  I was incredibly proud of my mom and was tearing up when she told me.

Coincidently, the next day I had received a message on YouTube from a man who wanted to share his mother’s experience with his coming out experience. She allegedly speaks out quite a bit on being a mother of a gay son. I watched a YouTube video of her speaking. When her son first came out to her, she insisted on reparative therapy. He never spoke to her again. It was after that she realized that was doing something wrong as a parent: she forgot to love him. Her mission isn’t to teach a position on homosexuality (while I think she may not agree with it though, but that’s just a personal observation), she wants to teach parents to remember that they are called to love their children unconditionally. There was a line from her speech that I loved, “I cannot teach you how to change your children, but I can teach you how to love them!”

Not every parent of a LGBTQ child has to stand up in class to acknowledge that have a gay child. Every mom doesn’t have to be a PFLAG member and march in the Pride parade. Every parent doesn’t have to be “out.” But parents do have a duty as a parent to love their children unconditionally. All too often when children come out their parents, they are not reminded that they are loved. Parents too often focus on “who” their children are attracted to, they care about what the church will the think, they don’t want their little boys wearing dresses, etc. But they need to pause and remember that before saying anything else to their child, they need to remind them that they are loved no matter what.

I’ve been in contact with this young man who is in his coming out process. He just came out to his father. His father responded ignorantly on the subject and doesn’t ever want to hear anything about it ever again. What’s hurting my friend the most is that his father never told him loved him still. My friend said that he doesn’t care if his dad will disagree with his homosexuality, but he wants to know that he will still be loved.

Parents, you have a duty to your children to remind that no matter what you will love them without reservation.