Tuesday, February 24, 2009

What do Straight Parents do?

What's the first thing that many straight parents do when they find out one of their children are gay? They freak out. They say it's a phase. They tell them it's not natural. They tell them that being gay is wrong. They tell them that being gay is a sin. They beat their kids. They throw them out of the house. They try to change them to be straight. They cut off financial support. They treat them with less respect than their straight kids. For gay guys: When will you meet a nice girl? For gay gals: When will you meet a nice guy? They say there is something wrong with them. They say, "What will other people say?" They put so much pressure on their kids that the suicide rate among gay kids is three times higher than their straight counterparts.

Here is my message to homophobic straight parents: Fuck you, assholes.

(Homophobic parents don't care how much damage they inflict on their gay children, since they think pushing heterosexuality on their children is not morally wrong. Of course, if a gay person makes advances to a straight person, that's wrong! Hypocrites. Homophobic parents will also vote against their gay children concerning marriage equality.)

4 comments:

Tom Interval said...

I wish someone could turn the tables on homophobic parents so they would experience the same exclusion as their kids. Wouldn't it be great if society segregated homophobics for one year so they could see what it's like? Efforts would be made to change their sexuality, and everyone would view them and treat them like outcasts.

Mike West said...

I could not have said it better. Thanks Follybuster.

David Jones said...

Both the left and right wing use sexuality as a political football, and I'm disappointed with both. Marriage is a personal moral issue, and therefore, the state needs to get out of the marriage business. State marriage is a text book case of the the state intruding upon our personal freedoms. There should not be gay or straight marriage sponsored by the state, only civil unions. Marriage, then, would take place outside of the the politics of the state and according to one's own moral, philosophical, or religious preferences.

David Jones said...

Mike, one story.

You met my step-father, but you may not be aware that after my dad died and my mom married him, he took the $300K from my brothers and I that was set aside by the insurance company for our college education and used it to purchase a home, cars, motorcycles, etc., so he did not have to go out and get a job himself.

I had to pay rent to live at home when I turned 12, and I had to purchase my own clothes, school supplies, etc. He took my monthly Social Security check and used it for his own wants and needs. He beat me unconscious on many occasions, threw me through a window, and treated me like crap every day. The one thing that kept me alive is that I am a scrappy son-of-a-bitch who doesn't let anyone keep me down.

As one who survived this chaos, I am particularly attuned to those who are suffering through similar situations, including those who have been ostracized because they are gay. It is one of the affinities for you that I share.

The anger that I had from my situation needed to be directed, however, in a constructive manner, and "fuck you" didn't seem to fit the bill of a constructive response.

The more I hung on to my anger, the more at risk I put my wife and my daughter. I found out that I had the potential to be exactly like the very thing I hated. My anger needed to be used for constructive purposes: protecting my wife and daughter from him, and also protecting them from me (see, that is the most difficult admission: I'm no better than my step-father).

I had to find a way to defuse the anger inside of me and to forgive, not for the sake of my step-father, but for the sake of my family. My daughter is now 14, and I have never hit her, stolen from her, or verbally abused her.

At some point, the anger has got to go, otherwise our abuser keeps hurting us. As long as we have that rage, our abuser still has control of us. Our anger certainly isn't hurting our abuser, but it does take a toll on us and the ones we love.