By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Parenting – 5 hours ago
“I overheard your phone conversation with Mike last night about your plans to come out to me,” it reads. “The only thing I need you to plan is to bring home OJ and bread after class. We are out, like you now. I’ve known you were gay since you were six, I’ve loved you since you were born.”
He signs it “Dad” and finishes with a post script: “Your mom and I think you and Mike make a cute couple.”
The letter was posted on the Facebook page of FCKH8.com, an organization aimed at empowering youth through its snarky, gay-positive T-shirts, videos and activist campaigns. Fans often send in photos of inspiring items, from cakes topped with “I’m gay!” to jack o’lanterns carved with “FCKH8.”
“We get a lot of crazy stuff, so I almost didn’t look at it,” FCKH8.com founder Luke Montgomery told Yahoo! Shine about the letter, which was emailed to them by Nate, a Michigan high-school student. But when he did read it, he said, “I cried.”
He said Nate’s family did not want to share any information besides the letter itself. But the four sentences alone have been enough to inspire a bit of an online frenzy.
“It’s actually sad so many people are excited about it,” Mongtomery said. “And what I think that says is, one, it’s rare, and that’s really bad. And two, people are really craving this kind of reaction.” The website founder, a 39-year-old gay man who has a strained relationship with his Christian fundamentalist parents—especially since he drove around the country in a “Legalize Love” campaign in support of Obama last fall—was personally touched by the note’s simple, powerful message.
“It’s what I want,” he explained. “It’s what everyone wants.”
The national organization Parents and Families of Lesbian and Gays (PFLAG) also saw the letter and loved it.
“This letter is what PFLAG is all about—what child doesn’t want to receive unconditional love from his or her parents?” a spokesperson told Yahoo! Shine. “For some, like this dad, it comes quickly. For others, it may take time. But regardless of how or when they get there, parents need to have their kids’ backs, no matter what. So applause for Nate’s dad. And Nate? You better remember the OJ and bread!”
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Based on recent events, including Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman's now supporting gay marriage & Obama supporting the same, it seems quite obvious that a big step toward (legal) acceptance of gay people is inevitable and will be enacted soon.
In the not-so-distant future, people will look back and wonder how discrimination against gays was allowed to exist for such a long time in the U.S.
Way back when I was young(er) I remember telling my friends (probably while stoned and/or drunk) that people being gay will be considered "normal" in our society "in the future".
As I expected, a few friends expressed jokingly and maybe not so jokingly that I must be gay because I said that.
I even remember saying to one friend, Frank, "I would still consider you a good friend even if you turned out to be gay". Looking back, I think that was like saying, "You would still be my friend even if you were black."
Frank gave me a funny look.
Years later he came out of the closet.
And yes, we're still friends even though he's not black.
My point is, I think the time has finally come. When republicans have finally started accepting gay people as non-queer you know that it can't be too long before gay people are treated (legally) as equal as the rest of us heterosexuals.
What do you think?
