out

(note:  Some of you may have mixed feelings about what you're about to read.  I understand that.  At one time I had mixed feelings and I was living it. For too long the extremists have been getting all the sound bytes.  My conscious - and my love for my family - does not allow me to be silent any longer.)

Last month, not long after my surgery, I found this article on Facebook:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-pavlovitz/if-i-have-gay-children-fo_b_5869298.html

It's an issue that's been needling me for quite some time.  Because...both of our kids are gay.  Yep.  Both of 'em.  I've asked for their permission (and Ron's) to "out" us as a family and they've read what you're going to read.  So we're all on board with this.

But...that wasn't always the case.  Twelve years ago, when Kate came out, I was in a very different place.  I had spent the previous six years deeply immersed in our church, working on staff as a communications coordinator, was involved with Bible Study Fellowship (was even a discussion leader for a couple of years) and had pretty much come to accept the cliched "love the sinner, not the sin" way of thinking.  Ron's oldest brother, Richard, was a gay man living with AIDS in San Francisco, so we'd had some exposure to that community.  But California was far, far away...not in our own back yard.  Yet.

So when we found out about Kate, I was mad.  Mad, mad, mad.  Mad because of the way the events unfolded.  Mad because Ron and I had asked her many, many times about her sexual orientation and she'd always claimed she was straight.  And I was mad because it made me question all the things I'd been learning and taking to heart.  I wasn't so much mad at Kate as I was the circumstances that came long with it.

For the first few years I was able to push the whole thing to the back burner.  We were having a somewhat difficult relationship with Kate, so it was easy not to think about it very much.  She lived out of town, so we didn't see her that often.  And I didn't really talk about it very much with my friends because I didn't know what to say.  Was I being hypocritical, having a gay daughter and still being an active leader in the church?  I know, it may sound ludicrous, but I've never claimed to have a rational brain.

Then came Tyler.  By then I had come to strongly feel that genetic factors determine sexual orientation.  I didn't (and don't) believe it is a choice.  And, because of the family history, Ron and I had talked to Tyler about it on numerous occasions.  He, like Kate, denied it.  But then one summer when he was home from college (I think it was after his sophomore year), he and I were sitting on the couch and I asked him again.  He looked at me and asked, "Why is it important for you to know?"

Right then I knew. And he knew that I knew.  I held him in my arms as he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.  He apologized over and over again.  He said that he'd been praying since he was ten or so that God would change him and it hadn't happened.

My heart broke in a thousand pieces in those moments.  For Tyler.  For Kate.

For all the young men and women who are frightened to be gay.  For all the kids who can't tell their parents.  Who have heard the words of loud, angry, scared, ignorant people who have no comprehension how deeply their words of contempt and scorn can wound a soul.  For the thousands of young gay men and women who don't have a clue how to navigate this potentially dangerous road they're on.

My heart broke for the parents of these kids, who may have been as hapless as we were about how to digest it all.

My heart broke because of the role I had played in our kids' reluctance to tell us who they were/are.  I know a large part of Tyler's hesitation was our initial reaction to Kate's experience.  And even though I don't think Ron or I ever talked negatively about homosexuals, that the lifestyle was "bad" was implied.

Most of all, my heart broke for the years and years Tyler thought God had abandoned him.  I can't begin to imagine how lonely and painful that must have been.

I remember Tyler saying, during that first conversation, that he wasn't going to "act" on it.  And I found myself saying, "You deserve to be loved and to love.  You have a right to have a loving relationship.  To have kids."

I also remember thinking - as the words were coming out of my mouth - "What am I saying??"  In my mind, I'd never allowed myself to go there because - well - it hadn't ever come up.  But right then - in that moment - I believed what I was saying.

Because now...it WAS in my back yard.

next time...part two...