I just know that I find the whole concept of homophobia so very odd and illogical, that it still baffles me.

I also agree with Mythago-those guys in the article were idiots. Fakers. Faux. The people who’ve posted on this message have genuine respect and interest in others. Those guys didn’t AT ALL-they were more pre-occupied with how they were seen.

As a black person-this story makes me laugh, as it’s the same reaction I’ve heard when I dated White guys-people who were soo open minded-suddenly thought it was right, what about the abuse we would get?

Funny old world we inhabit.

Like you, T., I don’t care if my son is gay, bi or straight, as long as he makes healthy choices and picks good people to share his life with.

In our case, my son is an autistic child. So, I’m getting a bit of a dry run with the whole issue of my son being “different”. And what I find is that, so long as I am comfortable with my son’s autism, and am comfortable discussing it with people, they are very accepting. Especially the children. We were at the playground last week, and Evan was being a bit rambunctious, in an autistic way. At one point, he went for the swings, and took one from a kid who may not have been finished yet. I explained that he was autistic, and the kid shrugged and relaxed. Another time, we were at a seaport museum, and he ran up and tried to hug a girl around 11. She shrieked “Get off!”. I caught up at that point, and pulled him away. I apologized, and explained that he was autistic. She immediately softened, and apologized for getting upset.

What’s my point? I have a couple. The first is that my son’s sexual orientation is nobody’s business but his. For me to worry about that would be tantamount to worrying about his autism, or his eye-color. It’s all just part of the package that God (or Nature, depending on one’s point of view) has endowed him with.

The second is that there will always be parents who are afraid of their children’s deviation from the “norm”. I see it in the autistic community; parents with fearful and unaccepting attitudes about autism tend to have autistic children who don’t believe in themselves. It is a selfish attitude which stems from the attitude of “how does this affect me?” which pervades our society. I can choose to be one of those parents, or I can choose to be a parent who trusts that Love will provide. I am proud of my son. I wouldn’t change a thing about him. I work every day to be the kind of father he can be proud of.

Terrance — hell of a post. Thank you.

I think it’s unrealistic to expect people to have unconflicted, perfectly politically aware feelings about such basic emotional issues. I think what matters is that a parent can recognize that it’s his issue to work through, not the kid’s.

That said, I think it’s a shame. Not that one would rather have a worry-free child (as if it were possible), but the very idea that a straight boy is a worry-free child. No, he may not experience the same obstacles, but left to his own devices he may be the one CREATING obstacles for others. That’s no good. Straight boys need our attention and vigilance too.

Eight years ago a sixteen year old boy in my Sunday school class told us that he wasn’t going to see us anymore because his foster family was breaking up. My husband and I called his social worker and naively announced we wanted to be his parents. She visited us and after about an hour said, “There’s something I have to tell you. ‘Carl’ says I can because you need to know and he doesn’t think he can tell you himself.” I braced myself for the news that he set fires or tortured animals and she said, in a suddenly-quiet voice, “‘Carl’ is gay.”

My first reaction was relief so strong it was joy. If the big scary secret about Carl was that he was gay, I was fine. No problem. I considered myself a gay-rights activist. I was cool with it. It wouldn’t be an issue at all.

I was wrong.

At first he didn’t want me to tell anyone, and I found myself living in the closet which SUCKED BEYOND THE ABILITY OF WORDS TO DESCRIBE. After a month I just couldn’t take it. I had stopped talking to my mother and my friends. When I ran into people I had to make up conversation. I couldn’t talk about what was on my mind. I could not express my worries or hopes. I could not tell people about the exprience of moving from disapproving of homophobic messages to suddenly being PISSED OFF at them. Suddenly it was personal and I had no time to process it and had promised not to talk to anyone about it. I finally got him to agree that I had to be able to talk to my friends.

And then a student at the college where I teach was assaulted. Someone who wasn’t a student followed him back from a party, threw him up against a building and started calling him “faggot.” Someone called the security and he was not hurt physically, but he was deeply traumatized. And though he did not know that only months before I had become a mother to a gay son, he came to me for support. The year before I would have been outraged. I still was, but the outrage wasn’t pure — it was mixed with fear for someone I loved.

I live half a mile from the campus. Suddenly I did not want to let my sixteen-year-old out after dusk.

He kissed a boyfriend goodbye in a car in front of our house and I had to call the police because the idiot in the house across the street started calling my then 8-year-old a “fag” whenever he went into the yard.

No matter how liberal you are, finding out that your kid is gay means finding out that they will have to deal with prejudice and hate in a way you did not expect. It means that monsters that only threatened other people’s kids are now threatening yours.

I tremble as I write this.

I have seen it in so many parents in their first PFLAG meeting. They come confused, telling us that they have gay friends, they really thought that they were totally “okay with homosexuality” but since their kid told them they just can’t stop crying and they don’t know why. We hand them the tissues and tell them we understand.

I am afraid I have been too negative here, and I don’t want that. I want to tell you about the joys I experience. How much I love the prom photo of our second foster son and his boyfriend. I love the photo for the joy on their faces and for the pride I feel for them for not backing out when they learned they would be the first openly same-sex couple to attend the prom at their school. I have so many stories I want to share. I want to tell you how about how proud I have am of all my kids, about what it means to celebrate their sexuality, their completeness just as I would any other kid.

But that is not the whole story. Seeing Fred Phelps on TV saying that God hates gays is a different experience when it is YOUR kid he is saying should be in hell.