Last fall my fifteen-year-old son told me something that I suspected but did not know for sure. I am sure this blog and others are full of similar stories. He told me on a Sunday night that he needed to talk to me and my wife. He came into our bedroom where my wife had already been getting ready to go to sleep and told us that he was gay. As I suspected it, his news did not shock me for its content, but its bold delivery to me did. No excuses, just fact, I have struggled with accepting homosexuality through my life. I grew up with the stereotypes firmly entrenched in my white, Christian, athlete culture background. No excuses though, that was wrong. Flat out wrong. And I had a deserved reputation among the females in my family, in particular my wife and my mother, as being somewhat intolerant. So, yes, when my son told me of his sexuality, I knew what kind of courage it took to tell me that at the age of fifteen. And the emotion that ran through my veins was pure pride. And not to pander to the readers of this website, but just to tell you what happened that night, I just looked at my son and said, “I love you, buddy.” And I embraced him.
My son and I do not always get along to say the least. I am a little rough for my son. He is quiet and I tend to speak loudly, o.k. yell. He likes to stay in his room and lose himself with funny videos and I like to go out, grab a beer, watch sports, etc. He has a healthy aversion to violence on television and in movies and I’ll watch any war movie or science fiction Star Wars type epic I can find. He has a quiet, almost devious sense of humor that relies on well-placed irony and questioning of the norm, and I love a good dirty joke, sophomoric imitations and slapstick. Just today we had a rather contentious disagreement about the driver’s education course I am currently trying to teach him. But, by the end of the day we are not afraid to simply tell the other, “I love you.”
Since the fall, I have become much more aware of LBGTQ… I won’t say issues… but of the atmosphere in our country that surrounds people who are LBGTQ. I am no expert, far from it. But I am much more aware of the institutional and subtle discrimination that they face. I am not going to delve into the bathroom issue, but I am going to say that is one of many areas that my son will have to face as he grows up. It is just startling. And as a parent, I am concerned.
So, I wake up this morning, go to my Twitter feed and my Facebook feed, and it is dominated by Orlando. My niece and her boyfriend live close to the Pulse and I contacted them to make sure they were o.k. They were but of course knew folks who were closely connected to what had happened. I watched the news in and out all day and watched the President’s speech live. Like most, just felt an overwhelming sadness. And, of course, I feared for my son.
I just came in from outside from talking to him. I felt like what I am sure many African American parents feel like when they talk to their teenagers. I warned him that there are many people out there who will hate him simply for who he is. I told him to be wary of people. I warned many people’s religious beliefs will drive them to hate him and they will feel justified in potentially harming him. What a crappy thing to feel I had to say.
I don’t post much, but when I do I try to talk about how specific issues affect my family in a day to day manner. Orlando changes things for me. Tomorrow I will contact my senators, my representative, my governor, etc. and tell them it is time to take action in regards to automatic weapons and hate crimes. As many of them are Tea Party Republicans (Cornyn and Cruz and Abbott; you get the picture), I am sure that my positions will fall on pretty much deaf ears. But we need to. We all need to.
If you haven’t watched the video of the mother who was interviewed by George Stephanopolous. Do yourself a favor and give her a listen. She is much more eloquent than I am, and she speaks for me.