Mizzkyttie points us to an incident of parents trying to screw up their gay kids:
Last spring, I sat in my office listening to a student tell me he might not be able to get his paper in on time because his parents had thrown him out of the house for being gay (he was actually worried about the paper). A couple months ago, I sat at my computer screen crying as I read this diary at dKos. What the fuck is wrong with these people?!
Over at Pandagon, Amanda takes a look at some of the surveillance involved in the programs rules (Here’s my favorite one from the entire list: “The clients may not wear Abercrombie and Fitch or Calvin Klein brand clothing, undergarments, or accessories.”) Ex-Gay Watch has been following the situation as well.
The whole program rests upon the assumption that homosexuality is a result of gender-inappropriate socialization. Us queers didn’t learn the right ways to be men and women. Thus, women in the program are required to shave their legs and armpits twice a week, and men are forbiden from wearing bikini briefs. What they wish to creat is a world of Ward’s and June’s on valium, acting out the ideal family in a state of perpetual numbness. And that’s for the people who aren’t destroyed by these programs. This quote, provided by the Queer Action Coalition, shows us what the Anti-Gay Industry is really after (and make no mistake, these ex-gay “ministries” are virulently anti-gay and tightly linked to groups like AFA and FRC):
Yup, folks, that’s what this poor kid and the rest of us are up against.
The most important thing is my comfort – no matter what it costs others.
Grim stuff.
That’s what most denials of human rights seem to come down to, though, isn’t it? “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of abortion, so I want to ban choice.” “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of working with blacks, so I support segregation.” “Gay people make me uncomfortable about my sexuality/gender role, so I want them all to go away.” “Muslims make me insecure about my religion, so we should kill them all.” “Liberals question my beliefs, which is uncomfortable, so they’re evil commie traitors.”
Did I miss any of the big ones?
one more..strong women make me feel neutered, so they need to stay at home pregnant.
Actually there are a couple more. Old people and disabled people make me feel mortal so we need to hide them.
Here is a weird story that is kind of related. I have a friend whose deaf. He’s Gay too, but that isn’t what bothers his parents. They are definitely annoyed with his deafness. His mom knows how to sign but refuses, and his dad refuses to learn. When he comes home to visit (which isn’t often) his sister (anxious that he feel welcome) is maddly signing the entire time.
And the message, from the refusal to address him, from the constant feeling of exasperation in the room is “Alright, we’ve had just about enough of your pretending to be deaf now!”
My Mom is a Social Worker and I was describing the situation to her and she said that actually that tone/situation was very common from parents of disabled children.
Isn’t that weird?
but I just don’t get that….just don’t get it at all.
Old, old mentality, I think. Raising a disabled (“flawed”) child means that they, somehow, must be “flawed”, or that they must have made some kind of “mistake”. So they can’t recognize his disability because of what it implies about themselves.
this is one of those situations where an intellectual explanation may make perfect sense, but I still don’t “get it.” Ya know? I can explain it but it’s so stunningly foreign to anything I can imagine doing in a similar situation that it’s really beyond my comprehension.
I know what you mean. Well, not entirely true. In this situation, I can see some initial fright like that – emotional reactions can be hard to control, after all, and disabilities can be very scary things. But to continue doing it, year after year? That’s just… Inconceivable!
I was paralyzed in a motor vehicle accident in 1987. My mother(whom I now live 1200 miles from)refused to get an accessible apartment(we lived 3 flights up from the street) and blamed the accident on me (never mind the woman that hit me was ticketed and settled damages out of court). My Dad, who handled it much better is still uncomfortable, and my brother finally got a handle on it although it has taken him a while. The only one who was right on since the beginning was my sister.
I guess what I’m getting at is in my experience I watched my family go nuts and saw their denial and refusal to deal with the situation at hand in any sort of reasonable/rational way. Rather than see that I was still capable of living a productive, enjoyable life from my chair all they saw was the chair and paralyzed body in it.
I’m not so sure it is the mortality as it is the fear of what they don’t know and their refusal to learn about it or deal with it in a rational manner. I say this because you have your rubberneckers at interstate wrecks who can’t look away from whatever grisly carnage they might see and yet I have had entire conversations with people who have never even looked at me. <sarcasm>Let me tell you, that really makes you feel good about yourself!</sarcasm>
This goes for a lot of other discrimination as well. And I will add that it is no excuse for discrimination or poor treatment.
Good Greif, I guess not!
“Poor people make me feel uncomfortable/guilty/fearful, so I deny that poverty really exists or is anyone’s fault but their own.”
would rather their son be dead than gay, and I personally know of one evangelical father that drove his son to suicide.
Of course you see the same attitudes among Muslims too – even to the extent of family murdering their daughters/sisters in “honor” killings.
They are just hopelessly mentally sick from their religion.
I have heard christians say that they would rather their son be dead than gay, and I personally know of one evangelical father that drove his son to suicide.
That’s honor killing in everything but the name.
that is essentially what my mother said to me when I came out to her. It almost destroyed me, and I was in my mid-20’s at the time. To be a teen and hear that would be utterly devastating. These people are the worst scum imaginable, and they fancy themselves the chosen of God. Whatever, the man they consider God would never recognize them as his own, and they are despicable regardless.
I am dead serious.
Years ago during the Clinton impeachment, I was a member of aol. I posted on what we used to call the “Clinton Impeachment boards”. I ran into and created an online email group with a lot of other democrats. Round about Halloween that year we decided that we would try and have a group of mixed friends…democrats and freepers. FOOLISH, but it worked for awhile because we outlawed talk of politics.
One day though I couldn’t take it anymore. Some woman was going on about how her son would never be gay and blah blah blah. So I told her there was a good chance she and her right wing friends were child abusers because they spent years teaching their gay children to hate themselves.
It blew the top of her head off. Seriously, how can people be so ignorant.
But you know what? You can’t educate people, you just have to stop them or save their victims. I say charge these people with child abuse.
how powerful the drive to protect children is. Especially if you are a parent – how many of us feel that dark rage when we hear an Amber Alert – and then think about people that have been able to turn that off in favor of what…I just don’t get it.
I read stories like this that I realize how lucky I am.
When Mom first found out I was gay, she suggested a “Christian counselor.” There’s no more talk of that…she and Dad have gone to Pride with me and we’re all going to my aunts’ wedding in Vancouver in August.
“it blew the top of her head off”? She yelled at you? Stared speechless in shock?
of red with rage (in e-mail) she spent weeks SCREAMING at me and everything I had to say. She was SHOCKED I would dare to suggest such a thing.
say that suicide is one of the mortal sins you go to hell for?
My brain is exploding here. Let me wipe that off the screen…
But seriously…
Better an eternity of hellfire than a few decades of sin which you can repent at the end of?
This is sick.
do, what about the rest?
that a lot of Protestant churches recognize “mortal sins”…sin is sin….I don’t recall any such concept from my United Methodist confirmation classes…then again, that was over 20 years ago
And that’s forgetting to bring a dish to the pot luck!
brings the green bean casserole with fried onions, the potluck is canceled. Luckily, there’s never been one canceled.
When did you last see a stadium ‘televangelist’ sit washing the feet of all attending? That bunch – the weak-minded and their controllers alike – wouldn’t know Jesus if he kicked them in the arse.
Yeah, this is sick. These are sick people. They’ve been poisoned and now are poisoning their young. This is yet more of the big in-your-face FUCK YOU that the American Taliban represent. It really is a very clever scam, in that no one’s at the centre of it yet everyone can get a piece if they just play along. Oh, and you know what happens to people who don’t play along, don’t you?
It strikes me that some of the kids who are going through this confusion/self-loathing/fear/Hell might be so easily controlled at some point. It’s awfully scary how some people can be who’ve gone through the whole ‘born again’ thing.
This is Sick.
Chin up – Matt 24:1-2
I don’t know, I keep holding the hope for some real love to invade human hearts, your reminder in this diary makes it pretty tough to do that sometimes.
It should be illegal for these type of programs to exist. What your diary did first off was bring instant tears to my eyes as I remember those of my family of gays and lesbian friends who committed suicide, or who mistakenly turned themselves over to the “experimenters” who said they could cure them by electric shock treatments. Aversion Therapy. Ha! Or the ones still drowning in alcohol and or drugs, or the ones struggling through years of therapy just to lead a half way normal life.
As I read, now many years ago, an account of a young man who spent years letting them fry his brain with shock treatments, I recall all of the horrors he went through. It did change him all right. He became totally a-sexual. He had large chunks of time he could not recall at all. His thinking process became so disrupted he could barely think at all. He became agitated all of the time. A pacer, unable to have moments of calm. The physical pain of it was just as bad as he described in detail how painful it was.
Criminals. Torturers! Sadistic and mean spirited! Anti-Christ! Anti-Muhamed! Anti-humanity.
It breaks my heart. And May these pseudo preachers rot in hell for eternity + a million years.
What kind of parents would listen to such absolute hate-filled idiocy?
Oh. . . .don’t get me started. I am looking for a torch to light as I gather the troops around me. . .
Wounded in my soul,
Shirl
This scares the hell out of me. I have a 12 year old nephew that is already in “Christian” counseling because at the age of 9 he kept talking about wanting to be dead. He lives in Dallas with my ultra-fundamentalist brother and sister-in-law. A couple of months ago, he told me he wished he was Jessica Simpson because she’s hot.
Help me out – how worried should I be???
If he wants to talk, tell him he is fine the way he is. Advise him to handle any way that he needs to, but to never believe that being gay is a sin, that some Christians are simply confused about the bible.
Show him some positive gay role models, make them part of his life if possible.
Be in his life as much as possible.
let him know he’s ok…let him know you really care about him and want him to be the best person he can….let him know that you’ll be there to listen to whatever he has to say, and you’ll love him whatever…allow him to figure out who he is, and be there to help him along the way.
I don’t know how worried you should be…as worried as any of us about the damage done to kids in ultra-fundamentalist situations…Be there for him, even if his parents won’t.
Your goal is to protect the kid.
If you stand up too strongly, his parents will consider you an “undesirable influence” and cut you also betraying him.
If possible, clue the kid in to your dilemma.
It seems to me that at some time in the future, the best solution for the kid might be for him to come to live with you. So you need to stay sufficiently on his parents’ good side that they will consider you an option.
OTOH, even more bottom-line is that you want to keep the kid sufficiently optimistic that he won’t suicide.
I don’t remember offhand which St. Paul Lutheran church it is that has a lesbian pastor named Anita Hill. You might want to make contact with them. If nothing else, perhaps you could get some wise advice.
So far I have felt that I had to stay on good terms with his parents and also keep lines of communication open with him. He’s still pretty pre-pubescent so I don’t think he’s even totally aware of what is happening with him. But I could be wrong – I’ve never been there. It’s just that every now and then I get really scared.
with a smile, that there’s all kinds of places and people out there, and that life gets better once you turn 18 and can get out there & start to find your own place in the world. Ask him what he might like to do someday… and encourage any answer that gets him away from a hateful environment.
Gay teens commit suicide when several factors are present, the main one is hatred but a secondary one is a perceived lack of options, both present and future.
And even if he isn’t actually gay at all, the above advice does no harm!
ever let him visit you for an extended period of time, like during the summer? You wouldn’t have to push the envelope on the issue of being gay – which would send up a red flag for the parents (and they could cut off your contact). You could just expose him to a wide range of different cultural events and activities.
That was the first thing that came to my mind. If you’re going to give him any help make sure you mind your relationship with his parents.
I have one suggestion though: J. Simpson is a nerd – if your nephew is a *gasp* nerd, one of the most valuable things you could do for him is to engage that. Tallk to him about nerdy things. Make sure he knows all about how colleges and universities work (well, maybe gloss over some of the more sordid parts). Options are important. Make sure he understands that. Help him to enroll in extra-curricular activities (i can’t believe i’m saying this, BTW). Show him how to educate himself.
To his parents you’re simply taking an interest in him and maybe providing a positive influence on him. Who knows? Maybe if he really poured himself into nerdom he could legitimately avoid attending the ‘counselling’. Could be win–win.
Chin up, and thank you for posting. It sounds pretty shitty but doesn’t have to be.
not to commit suicide. Don’t mince words. Tell him “I love you a lot, and I want you to promise me you won’t commit suicide, no matter what happens, because I would be too too sad to not have you in my life any more.”
Actually, #1 item would be to ask him, “Have you considered killing yourself?” Do NOT take anyone else’s word for it, ask. He’ll tell you. No matter if answer is yes or no, follow up immediately with the above.
Also tell him if things get too bad where he is, make his way to your place, you will take him in. Then even if he is stuck where he is, he has an open door/window. He can internally fantasize about living with you, which will allow him concrete fantasies about a better life. It takes him from the “danged if you do/danged if you don’t”, or “double bind” position, to a person who’s loved and wanted by someone who’d be understanding.
OK? Email me privately if you want to know more. I considered suicide age 10 (5th grade) or before, and had a plan, knew what it meant, I wanted the bleep out of where I was. When my stepson was in 5th or 6th grade, I made him promise me that he wouldn’t do it, saw the signs. He’s still around 7 years later.
PS
Please promise me that you’ll do this.
to all of you who have commented above. I’m going to call my brother today – he’s the other “sane” person in my family – and talk about a strategy (I’ll have him read this diary and thread). My nephew is surrounded by strong women (mother and three sisters) – so I think he’d really enjoy some of the connections suggested above if they came from him. I’ll chime in too – but we’ll do it together.
It’s cold comfort to the kid, but boy, I’d sure love to be a fly on the wall when those parents go to Jesus and he tells them “Get the fuck out of my sight, you sick fucks! Where did I once tell you to kick your kid out of the house because he’s gay?”
I have been reading about this for several hours and I’m feeling physically ill, I can’t imagine being locked up and treated so cruelty at the behest of someone who by rights should love me! No privacy, no love, no reading,no writing, no music,only the message that God hates you for the way he made you! It’s psychological torture at it’s finest, and to have to “confess” to every fantasy,image or urge that comes into you mind? Only to be told how evil you are for such thoughts?I can’t think of anything bad enough to visit on the parent who subjects their child to this. The only heartening thing is the outpouring of support for this kid and the daily protests outside this hell hole.
I’m so full of rage and anger and sorrow right now I can’t even think clearly, sorry for ranting but it’s so ugly and so wrong and I feel so helpless.
Shame is such a controlling head fuck. Cults who debase their subjects as less than human. The camera behind the mirror. The blood on the underwear. The Secret Society™ pledge jerking off in a coffin.
These people are so fucking sick. They feel that God’s Very Own thumb is upon their head and are transferring that to their children (and each other, of course). I could spit.
I think i’ll toss some 4s to everyone and move on to another thread. Maybe some Raging Grannies have been fed to the lions or something.
When I first came out to my parents years ago, my mother responded by telling me that, not only was I going to go to hell for being gay, but she was going to hell as well for raising me. Fortunately, she’s gotten a bit more educated over the years and has overcome this reaction.
Still, my heart goes out to these kids. Coming out is brutal, even for kids with moderate parents. Coming out to conservative, religious parents is simply terrifying. It took me ten years and I didn’t speak to my parents for a full year afterwards. It wasn’t until the birth of my son that our relationship normalized.
A few years ago, a group of women friends were celebrating another friend’s birthday. We all had daughters in the same grade, which is how many of us had originally gotten to know each other–daycare and then school functions.
We didn’t all share the same political opinions or parenting philosophies, but I thought we were all pretty decent human beings. One of the mothers there had two sons and two daughters; it was daughter #2 that’s the same age as my first daughter. At some point in the conversation, I overheard her say to the women at her end of the table, “If I ever found out Rxxx was gay, I’d cut his dick off.”
I confronted her. She accused me of being an overeducated snob who thought I was better than her. I shut up; it was my friend’s birthday and things were about to turn as ugly as they could possibly be. But, that woman and I have never spoken since. We acknowledge each other’s presence at social functions, but we’ve never had a conversation since. I think she’s sick, and I just don’t want to be around someone who is so full of hatred and fear that she would threaten one of her own children.
No. She. Didn’t.
Not only was she capable of thinking such a wretched thing, but her fool ass actually opened her mouth and said this aloud?
What is wrong with these people? I really do feel as if I’m living in Bizarro-world.
Yes she did. It was awful. I felt so conflicted. I knew if I had continued to argue with her, I was going to ruin my friend’s birthday celebration. Instead, I swallowed my bile, but another friend, who missed the original comment and heard the argument that started to erupt in its wake, when she heard what this woman had said, literally stood up from the table. I thought she was going to deck this stupid woman. I had to tell her to sit down, and so the two of us sat, glowering, smiling at our birthday friend, and wondering just how fucked-up a person had managed to wind up with four people she was supposed to be raising.
As an interesting followup. About two years later, eldest daughter was on the schoolbus and this woman’s oldest daughter (two years older than mine) got on the bus and said in a loud voice, “God, I hate gay people.” My daughter went ballistic and has never spoken to this girl again, so it has sort of become a mother-daughter thing.
Confronting homophobia is such a difficult thing in one’s own social circle. We have friends who have sons who were in the same grade as ours. Their favorite epithet was, you guessed it, “faggot”. We gritted our teeth with the kids, saying it wasn’t acceptable in our house, etc., but the first time we heard it from the mother, we called her on it. She was absolutely stunned. Didn’t get why a couple of lesbians would be offended by a slur towards gay men.
When I pointed out that a slur was a slur, it didn’t matter much who it was pointed towards, she was totally offended. When I said that I wouldn’t tolerate using the “N” word any more than the word faggot, she became incensed.
We speak now, but she’s much more careful around us. Our kids don’t play together much anymore, but her boys don’t use those words around us either. I don’t know whether they’ve stopped altogether, but at least they’re more aware.
One thing to remember here is that a lot of these people like to think they’re tolerant – presumably because they’re not calling for gays to be burned/hung/whatever. Having the facts of their intolerance made clear to them tends to make them incensed. It contradicts the happy little “I’m a good person, really” fantasy they’ve built up for themselves.
You also see this at a less personal level. I’ve had Southerners flip out at me for suggesting that there may still be racial bias in America in general, never mind in the South…
until there are no more stories like this to tell. It doesn’t appear all that much easier to come out all these decades later.
good one jeff.
Just chiming in to say thanks for posting this. I have many, many things to say, but right now they are mostly curse words and other forms of severely antisocial invective I’ll reserve for my cats. Maybe I’ll post more when I’m not quite as spitting mad.
These poor kids. I hope they make happy lives for themselves without the malicious interference of their selfish, frightened parents.
make these kinds of statements, I comfort myself by knowing that when these people reach the afterlife, they’re going to find that Heaven is not the Exclusive Country Club they’ve been preaching about.
Specifically, I picture Fred Phelps standing before the Throne of Judgement…to find Matthew Shepherd sitting at the right hand of God, and Randy Shilts sitting at the Left, and God consulting with them before giving Phelps the one-way escalator ride down…
how these people get this way. How can one “hate” their very own blood so much as to say and do these vile things. My ex and I have been good friends through the years, mostly for the sake of sharing holidays with our son and grand daughter. I mean we are exs for a reason.
Three years ago, he found out his son from a previous marriage is gay. He had an inkling but was mostly in denial. He said to me when he opened up about it, “I hate f’ing fags”. I was appalled. His son is also a drug addict. I told the ex he is trying to fill the black hole inside himself with drugs because he knew how you would react to finding out he is gay. The ex’s response was “He’s just a loser and I hate him”. He hasn’t spoken to his own son in three years and says he has washed his hands of him. How very sad this all is. The son is 38 and will probably die from his addiction, which I term as a slow suicide. The funny part is I knew he was gay twenty years ago. I just will never understand people that can turn their backs on these poor children or try to make them into something they are not, mostly because they think this is a reflection on who they are. Remember “American Beauty”?
Namely to go along with his parents until he’s 18 and then go to college in a blue state. I also suggested that he or a friend look for a GBLT org in his area — Tennessee, but not sure if urban or rural. The poor kid really needs a decent adult on his side, if only virtually.
this is a very serious subject and i don’t mean to trivialize it in any way. but if anyone wants to see a satirical look at these gay reform schools, try But I’m a Cheerleader
it kind of gets to the heart of what these schools are about.
Even for those who follow the Bible, doesn’t the theology state that suicide a “mortal”, meaning unforgivable, sin and homosexuality is not? Correct me if I’m wrong.
So now we have wacked out “pastors” telling kids it is better to committ a mortal sin than one that can be forgiven?
Maybe I just have my theology all messed up.
ok, nevermind, just read the upthread and this is covered.
-still twisted, though
My wife and I are raising our kids in a UCC Congregation that is explicitly welcoming to gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgendered people.
Our church is in Northern Virginia and 40 years ago the congregation decided to make a strong stand on desegregation. The congregation is very proud of what its members did then. But for the last 10 years, hearing those stories about civil right felt a little like a group of people resting on their laurels.
But in the last 2 years, the congregation has found a new purpose in ensuring equal rights for the GLBT community. We voted to become an Open and Affirming Congregation (that’s UCC-speak for saying we actively encourage gays to join our church). In the last year, several committees have formed to get the church involved in Gay Pride events and in lobbying against Virginia’s legislative attack on gay people.
I’m glad my children will grow up in a faith community where ALL people are valued and loved.
It is about the acceptance of gay, lesbian, transgendered individuals in one native american culture. They were also accepted in many of the cultures. Please read and enjoy.
http://www.sacredhoop.demon.co.uk/HOOP-35/Two-Spirits.html
There are a two things to remember, whatever you do: first, do NOT do something that will make his or her parents cut you out of the child’s life, which is their legal right to do. This may mean that you have to refrain from telling them in exquisite detail how wrong-headed they are. Wait. Hold your tongue, and express your opinions mildly and cooly. (I’m not advocating silence, just avoidance of confrontation and open conflict.)
Why?
Because (2) this child needs acceptance from you. Which means spending time with him or her, doing ordinary, adult-kid stuff. Not focusing on sex or sexuality – although if the kid brings it up, I wouldn’t shy away from it. Just doing ordinary things together. Walking, talking, concerts, fun, eating out, birthdays, holidays, silly stuff. And tell the kid that you love the kid, and that you value him/her so much that there is nothing that could make you feel differently. And tell the kid that being an adult is so much better than being a kid. Tell them a bit about troubles you had as a kid – not too much, kids often find this boring, but enough for the kid to know that you think life will be much better for the kid in the future.
Psychology is my field. I’ve seen kids take their own lives because of parental rejection. And I’ve see other kids not do so, because someone did accept the kid. And many times parents do change their minds, over time, even very conservative parents.