Evangelicals with Gay Children Belatedly Challenge Church

We have made it past Thanksgiving, but still have the rest of the holiday season before us.  As noted before, this is often a terrible time of year for members of the LGBT community - the holidays were torture for me the first year or two after I came out - but especially so for LGBT youth.  Too many parents continue to literally throw away their children in acts of unspeakable child abuse, listening to the anti-gay screeds of vicious pastors in pulpits instead of listening to their hearts and what I see as human instinct to protect one's child.  Some such unfit parents learn they have erred and make amends with their discarded children while some never do.  Others do so only after it is too late and their child has died ultimately because of their rejection of that child.  Rob and Linda Robertson fall into this last category and, as CBS News reports, they are now working to help other evangelicals to accept their LGBT children and say no to the hate and bigotry that is the stock and trade of their churches.  Here are article highlights:

Rob and Linda Robertson did what they believed was expected of them as good Christians.

When their 12-year-old son Ryan said he was gay, they told him they loved him, but he had to change. He entered "reparative therapy," met regularly with his pastor and immersed himself in Bible study and his church youth group.

After six years, nothing changed. A despondent Ryan cut off from his parents and his faith, started taking drugs and in 2009, died of an overdose.

"Now we realize we were so wrongly taught," said Rob Robertson, a firefighter for more than 30 years who lives in Redmond, Washington. "It's a horrible, horrible mistake the church has made."

The tragedy could have easily driven the Robertsons from the church. But instead of breaking with evangelicalism -- as many parents in similar circumstances have done -- the couple is taking a different approach, and they're inspiring other Christians with gay children to do the same.

They are staying in the church and, in protesting what they see as the demonization of their sons and daughters, presenting a new challenge to Christian leaders trying to hold off growing acceptance of same-sex relationships.

"Parents don't have anyone on their journey to reconcile their faith and their love for their child," said Linda Robertson, who with Rob attends a nondenominational evangelical church. "They either reject their child and hold onto their faith, or they reject their faith and hold onto their child. Rob and I think you can do both: be fully affirming of your faith and fully hold onto your child."

Linda Robertson, who blogs about her son at justbecausehebreathes.com, said a private Facebook page she started last year for evangelical mothers of gays has more than 300 members. And in the last few years, high-profile cases of prominent Christian parents embracing their gay children indicate a change is occurring beyond a few isolated families.

"I think at some point moms and dads are going to say to their pastors and church leadership that you can't tell me that my child is not loved unconditionally by God," said Susan Shopland, the daughter of a Presbyterian missionary who, along with her gay son, is active with the Gay Christian Network.

Kathy Baldock, a Christian who advocates for gay acceptance through her website CanyonwalkerConnections.com, said evangelical parents are speaking out more because of the example set by their children.

The collapse of support for "reparative therapy" is also a factor, Shopland said. In June of last year, Alan Chambers, the leader of Exodus International, a ministry that tried to help conflicted Christians repress same-sex attraction, apologized for the suffering the ministry caused and said the group would close down.

At a conference on marriage and sexuality last month, a prominent Southern Baptist leader, the Rev. Al Mohler, said he was wrong to believe that same-sex attraction could be changed. Baldock, The Marin Foundation and the Gay Christian Network all say Christian parents have been reaching out to them for help in notably higher numbers in the last couple of years.

Much work needs to be done.  Personally, I view religion as one of the principal forces of evil on the planet and believe it best if parents simply walk away from their churches.  But, if they feel they can't do that, then they need to stay and challenge the hate, bigotry and ignorance that are the hallmarks of conservative Christianity.  

This undated photo provided by Linda Robertson shows her son Ryan, who died in 2009.