Posts Tagged As: gay children
February 7th, 2011
Remember the mom who let her five-year-old son dress as the Scooby-Doo character Daphne for Halloween? The mother, identified only as “Sarah”, got a lot of flack over it from other moms at her son’s school. That was three months ago and the controversy still hasn’t died down. This time it’s Sarah’s church getting into the act, accusing her of “libel and slander” — even though Sarah only named the other moms as mother’s A, B, and C. ABC News has this update:
(On January 26), Sarah said she was called in for another meeting, in which the pastor told her she needed to apologize to the mothers whose comments she had mentioned in “My Son Is Gay.” She said the pastor also accused Sarah of “libel and slander, and told her that she “had taken offense [from the women] where none was intended.”
The pastor offered Sarah four steps to restore her relationships with the mothers, including writing an apology, taking down the blog post and perhaps taking down the entire blog. “I was told not to take Communion and that I may have my membership revoked if I didn’t reconcile,” Sarah said.
After Sarah complained to church elders, her pastor called back and said that he would reconsider the withholding of communion. Sarah, who says she has no idea whether her son will grow up to be gay or not (I mean, really, all of this over a Halloween costume!), responded to her church on Monday:
I cannot tell you the betrayal I feel. The church, or at the very least Pastor is trying to bully me into shutting up, and I find that so disheartening. I am floored by the fact that they’ve gone to so much trouble regarding a post that discusses love and tolerance that was posted 3 months ago. I am shocked that they do not see the hypocrisy of what they are saying to me. I am in complete disbelief that this has been handled in the way it has. I have never felt less welcome in a church.
This is not the church that I grew up in. This is not the God that I know.
And again I say to you that bullying is not okay, even if you wrap it in a bow and call it ‘spiritual care.’
November 5th, 2010
Dr. Jeff Gardere is not a hater. The celebrity couples therapist isn’t out to attack the rights of gay people. But he may be making assumptions about parents that are based more in his own internalized prejudices than on reality.
He was a guest last night on CNN to discuss blogger Nerdy Apple Bottom’s posting about her five year old son’s decision to go to a Halloween party as Daphne from Scooby-Doo. In addition to scolding the mother for “outing her son”, he announced a rather shocking and surprising declaration:
“I have to tell you, I work with many heterosexual as well as, uh, gay couples and it is the worst nightmare of both the heterosexual and the gay couples to have to fathom that their child may be gay.”
Now it may be that those heterosexual and, uh, gay couples that I know are anomalous. Perhaps I only have run across very strange heterosexual and, uh, gay couples in my life, but I don’t know any who consider fathoming that their child may be gay to be their worst nightmare.
I know some who would prefer that their kid be straight, some who don’t care, and some couples who hope that one of their kids is gay. I even know of one parent who tried to raise a son to be gay… unsuccessfully (but he did end up supportive). Yet I don’t know any who are fearful of such a prospect, much less that it’s their worst nightmare.
But I may be unusual in that way. So let me poll our readers, some of whom are, uh, gay couples who have or hope to have kids of their own.
November 4th, 2010
If you have not yet seen this, and you probably have, this here is the five year old son of Nerdy Apple Bottom. It’s Halloween and he’s Daphne. And his mother is not going to let you bully him about it.
If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.
If my daughter had dressed as Batman, no one would have thought twice about it. No one.
But it also was heartbreaking to me that my sweet, kind-hearted five year old was right to be worried. He knew that there were people like A, B, and C. And he, at 5, was concerned about how they would perceive him and what would happen to him.
Just as it was heartbreaking to those parents that have lost their children recently due to bullying. IT IS NOT OK TO BULLY. Even if you wrap it up in a bow and call it ‘concern.’ Those women were trying to bully me. And my son. MY son.
These good mothers at the Christian school would never ever think of themselves as bullies. But they are setting role models for their children, approving of condemnation and rejection and letting their kids know that they have the right to humiliate other kids who don’t dress up to their standards or live according to their gender expectations.
But I think this kid’s going to be okay. He has a cop for a father and a super-hero for a mother. I love this woman.
My son is gay. Or he’s not. I don’t care. He is still my son. And he is 5. And I am his mother. And if you have a problem with anything mentioned above, I don’t want to know you.
Amen.
A multi-part video interview series with Michael Bussee, co-founder of Exodus International turned critic.
May 18th, 2010
Yesterday we looked at Michael’s regret for teaching the idea that if you worked hard enough in an ex-gay program you would be changed.
Today Michael shares his other regret, teaching that bad parenting causes a person to be gay. Michael talks about the division in families that can cause and his own process of later reclaiming the belief his father was actually loving, giving, encouraging and self-sacrificial.
(transcript below the jump)
Featured Reports
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In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
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And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
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