Promises From a Christian Pastor/Parent

My dad at about age 20

Friday was the eight anniversary of the day I lost my father after he had battled a lingering illness.  It is always a strange day for me since September 26th is also my son's birthday.  I guess bitter sweet is the best way to describe the feelings I experience: sadness about my dad and joy about my wonderful son.  Coincidentally, on Friday, one of the staff from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation - which administers the George D. and Marion Phelps Hamar/HRBOR scholarship I endowed in my parents memory - called me because the Foundation is updating its website and adding more history/details about the various scholarships that it administers.  Among the questions that were ask was what motivated me to use a chunk of my inheritance to create the scholarship which benefits LGBT graduating high school seniors from the seven cities of Hampton Roads.  In a nutshell, I said I wanted to (i) honor my parents for how they embraced and supported me when I came out, and (ii) help LGBT youth who might not have as supportive of parents (this area still have far to many Bible thumpers).   My father was not the easiest of parents, but when the challenge came to accepting me, he met the test.  A piece in Huffington Post by a pastor and parent (he has two young children) summarizes to me what moved my father - and my mother to do the right thing.  Here are excerpts:

Sometimes I wonder if I'll have gay children.  I'm not sure if other parents think about this, but I do -- quite often.  Maybe it's because I have many gay people in my family and circle of friends. It's in my genes and in my tribe.

Maybe it's because, as a pastor of students, I've seen and heard the horror stories of gay Christian kids -- from both inside and outside of the closet -- trying to be part of the Church.

Maybe it's because, as a Christian, I interact with so many people who find homosexuality to be the most repulsive thing imaginable, and who make that abundantly clear at every conceivable opportunity.

He then goes on to expound on how he will love and support his children shoud they be LGBT.  He then says this to the horrid Christofascist and homophobes who might be motivated to reject their children:

Many of you may be offended by all of this, I fully realize. I know this may be especially true if you are a religious person -- one who finds the whole topic disgusting or unpleasant.
As you've been reading, you may have been rolling your eyes, or clicking the roof of your mouth, or drafting familiar Scriptures to send me, or praying for me to repent, or preparing to Unfriend me, or writing me off as a sinful, evil, Hell-bound heretic... but with as much gentleness and understanding as I can muster; I really couldn't care less.
This isn't about you. This is a whole lot bigger than you.

You're not the one I waited on breathlessly for nine months.

You're not the one I wept with joy for when you were born.

You're not the one I bathed, and fed, and rocked to sleep through a hundred intimate, midnight snuggle sessions.

You're not the one I taught to ride a bike, and whose scraped knee I kissed, and whose tiny, trembling hand I held, while getting stitches.

You're not the one whose head I love to smell, and whose face lights-up when I come home at night, and whose laughter is like music to my weary soul.

You're not the one who gives my days meaning and purpose, and who I adore more than I ever thought I could adore anything.

And you're not the one who I'll hopefully be with, when I take my last precious breaths on this planet; gratefully looking back on a lifetime of shared treasures, and resting in the knowledge that I loved you well.

If you're a parent, I don't know how you'll respond if you find out your children are gay, but I pray you consider it.

One day, despite your perceptions of your kids or how you've parented, you may need to respond in real-time, to a frightened, frantic, hurting child -- one whose sense of peace, and identity and acceptance, whose very heart, may be placed in your hands in a way you never imagined -- and you'll need to respond.

If that day should ever come for me -- if my children should ever come out to me -- this is the Dad I hope I'll be to them.

My dad wasn't a church goer, but when it came to honesty, integrity and supporting his children, he was far more Christian in his behavior that the hate merchants of the professional Christian class - where lying is the norm - and the leadership of falsely named "family values" organizations.