I recently watched a public television documentary about the experiences of gay men and women coming out to their parents. It was both heartbreaking and heartwarming.
So many tears shed because of the fear of being rejected by the people they love most in the world, at an age - usually late teens - when they need that love and acceptance most, as they are launching themselves out into the world.
So many of the families came from religious backgrounds that dictate that homosexuality is sinful, period. No room for shades of grey, no consideration of individual’s loving intention. Just plain wrong,
The level of ignorance of some of the parents was almost laughable. One Asian mother’s response when her daughter told her she was a lesbian, was to merely exclaim: “Impossible! There are no Asian lesbians!’
Needless to say, just the fact that these dear people were prepared to appear in this film indicates that they were ultimately able to abandon their prejudices, their bigotry and their blindness. They allowed the love for their children to transform their hearts, their minds and their lives. This was the heartwarming bit. So much love created from so much pain and suffering.
But the part I will always remember was the woman whose words ended the film. She said that although her church told her it was wrong, that the split between her heart and her mind could lead to her to make an enormous mistake for which she would suffer the burning fires of eternal hell, at the end of it all, she said this: if she was going to make a mistake, she wanted that mistake to be on the side of love.
Amen.
