I cant say i relate too well to the above experiences, but im familiar with the situation as many friends have gone through similar things. I suspect its just how many parents of that era are, and know that it can be quite unpleasnt to be caught with your pants down so to speak.

Ive heard the same thing, that family is supposed to be the most important thing, but truthfully, ive not been close with family in years, i dont see that changing much in the future. Friends took the top spot long ago. Friends are life.

Ive pondered the questions before, wondering how family would react to finding out any of a number of things. Whether they were true, or some fictional thing just to ponder reactions over. The disgust and anger, and even disownment would be particularly painful, depending on how attached to your family you are, and whether or not their opinions matter to you. While not being too close, their opinions do matter to me still, i suspect most people feel that way.

Your parents are some of those people who you dont want to ever see you differently. Should you experience that sort of outing, seems that there can never be a big enough rock to hide under at first. Over time as you grow apart that starts to mean less and less, and becomes easier to deal with, but ive seen families destroyed over the thing. Particularly in the cases of those who had religious ones.

My understanding is that if they make you feel ashamed of something that is a part of you, then you all lose. But if you can accept who you are in the face of that kind of pressure, and not let them make you feel bad about it, then its one less burden you must carry in fear. Sadly some such things do tear apart families, even in todays age.

I didn't want to say too much about it on my blog without your permission, but obviously you were foremost in my mind when I read and linked to that column. I was talking about you with K. last night, and she, who, like me, grew up with liberal atheist parents, couldn't even comprehend the amount of heartache and fracturing of self it must have taken to get through what you got through. Thank god you let your own sense of self and reason trump theirs, but I saw what you went through as it happened, and it was grueling to watch. I'm just freaking glad you made it out alive.

But you, uh, live with them? O_o

I'm not trying to say it's not the same thing or anything, although I do question how strong a discomfort it is if you haven't fled by now.

I left weeks after I turned 18, and moved to a different state after deciding that wasn't enough distance. I finally refused to talk to my parents at all if they didn't stop saying I was going to go to hell and treat me and my boyfriend as a respected couple. It's fairly obvious what they chose ^_^

All families react differently. Thankfully kids are free at 18. The sad thing is in many cases this is too late.

I had an excellent set of friends to help me ;) I don't think not surviving it was even in the realm of possibilities for me thanks to you.

I just wish I could say the same for other gay kids. Suicide rates and all :(

Bleh... I was at least happy with the last person, who's parents obviously knew what the fuck they were doing (talking about the parents who understood what their child was and didn't think of them as anything bad, but understood them for what they were). I can understand parents not wanting a gay child (like those who would rather abort than have a child with, say, Down's Syndrome), but what you need to do in that situation is fake it. Just like #2 was told to fake the straight porn, fake with all your heart if you can't accept what your child is. This will at least not make them miserable, though acceptance is DEFINITELY the better route. Just for those people who want to queer bash their entire lives, you gotta fake it for your kids, period.

A point of clarification: I do not mean have the kids fake it, I'm saying have the parents fake being tolerant, if they REALLY can't 100% honestly tolerate their child being homosexual.

I appreciate your equating homosexuality to a medical condition we should strive to cure. Really, I do.

A little thought before you post would be appreciated ;)

I did not mean that at all, and I'm trying to find out where in that post I implied it.....

The comment about aborting with Down's syndrome is that parents are intolerant of their child being different in many more cases than homosexuality.

Comparing it to left-handedness is the better choice ;)

Hopefully, some day, we will cure down syndrome.

Gayness is not something to be "cured".

Again, I never said, nor implied, that homosexuality should be "cured."

I merely said that if parents cannot be tolerant of their offspring, then A) they're bigots and B) they need to fake tolerance for the children's sake.

And again, the comparison to Down's syndrome was simply stating this:

[some] PARENTS ARE NOT TOLERANT OF THEIR CHILDREN BEING DIFFERENT THAN OTHER CHILDREN. BEING HOMOSEXUAL IS NOT BEING CONSIDERED A DISEASE IN THIS CASE, JUST DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM, LIKE YOUR EXAMPLE, LEFT HANDEDNESS. HOMOSEXUALS DO NOT MAKE UP THE MAJORITY, THEREFORE [intolerant] PARENTS DON'T WANT ONE, BECAUSE THEY WANT THEIR CHILD TO CONFORM.

Posted in caps for clarification.

Okay, OK :P

I just don't want you thinking of me as a bigot... Sometimes my opinions can be hard to understand (usually my poor writing, though sometimes I overcomplicate things) and I don't want people misunderstanding, especially when it comes to something like this.

Something tells me you don't quite understand me yet. Get on xfire so we can talk this over as opposed to firing back forum posts.

No, I understand what you're saying, and I don't think you're a bigot. I don't think you have poor writing skills, either.

I use bad examples all the time. I just think this is a case where you might have ;) I think you've more than cleared up your position, however.

Yeah, maybe Down's Syndrome was a bad example =P

I never really "came out" to my parents. I was also raised in a Christian home.

When I was a young teenager I remember many fights with my parents, which typically ended with me yelling "When I turn 18 I'm so f**king out of here.", then instantly regretting it (not out of fear, just felt like a very mean thing to say).

My mom is a bit more "down to earth" than my dad, and I think she caught on to many clues to my sexuality.. Namely, some of the people I hung out with.

My dad is the big religious guy of the house, and as such he lives a life oblivious to anything not in-line with his perfect family life dream.
For example my older brother went to prison for 2 years, but I never heard a single opinion on that from my father, he acted like my brother was simply living a city or two away.

As long as I can remember my parents would drag me to church, and I'd detest every moment of it. It was the largest waste of time, mainly because the other kids I met there were lame. I didn't identify with them at all and made no friends there whatsoever. Eventually I started to just sit with my parents during the main church sermons instead of going to Sunday school, so that I could avoid the other kids and "teachers" there.

When I was around 13 (I forget exactly) my parents made what I consider a "last ditch" effort to persuade me into religion: They offered me around $100 to go to a bible camp for a week. I accepted, that was a lot of money for a kid my age.
That week was something I'll likely never forget, it taught me just how screwed up religious fundamentalists can be, and that fundamentalists are NOT few.
Being in a place where everyone is religious, and you're not.. Well, it's a bit like being in the closet, except there's no one else who's out of the closet. At all.
You're alone and you're saturated by constant dogma, topped off with games, prizes, and fun times. You start to equate the two.
It's brainwashing.
The whole time I was there I just tried to tune out all the religion and focus on the fun activities.
By the end of the week when my parents came to pick me up I was crying. Literally. I wanted to be ANYWHERE but there.
Nothing exactly bad happened there (well, on the surface), no one was mean to me, no one pressured me.. but it was scary, I was fully aware they were indoctrinating me and I had absolutely no idea what any of it meant. I felt mind raped, is the best way I can describe it.
It was not worth $100, and after day 2 or 3 I would have easily said "Not worth it" and went home, if that was an option.

After that, I can't remember my parents making any more attempts to convert me. When I got a bit older they let me stay home from church, which was excellent.

I have extremely conflicting feeling about this whole thing.. Because on the one hand I know how important that was to my parents, me being religious and all. It was difficult to disappoint them.. But on the other hand, how sick and wrong I consider religion to be.

My parents would have to be like living under a rock oblivious if they didn't know I was not hetero-sexual by now.
When I was 17, DranoK and I sat down with my parents and I explained that I was moving to California to live with him. I remember taking the defensive in that discussion, saying things like "If you don't let me go now I'm just going to go when I turn 18 so I don't see what the point would be".
Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly they put up no kind of resistance.

I do keep in frequent contact with my parents, though. I like to know they are doing ok, and them to know I'm doing ok.

I may not agree fundamentally with them, but they are still my parents. <i>If they want to look the other way about my sexuality, then I'll look the other way about their religion.</i>

I don't know what their opinions ARE about gay people, but if it's like your typical fundamentalist they likely believe it is an evil abomination.. Well, I believe their religion is possibly one of the worst things a person can believe in.
Blind faith, in my opinion, is the sign of a flawed mind. Blind faith in god? Well unless I decide to simply look the other way, as I do with my parents, then I have no choice but to consider you a complete moron. Sorry ;)

So, I look the other way if they look the other way. How else would we ever communicate?
Plus we've had lots of good times that I'll never forget.. They've done so much for me as parents.
All in all, despite the religion, despite the gay thing, I think I got pretty good parents and you could do a lot worse than to live my childhood.



End story.

P.S. No there was no point.

I'm confused was that as if you were talking to your parents? Or was that directed at someone.

Religious people in general, noone specific.

Seems kind of harsh to be saying something like that to religious people. Though some are extremely intolerant of others, and lean maybe a little too heavily on their God, a good number of them are quite reasonable and just like everyone else. There are idiots and assholes on both sides of the coin, sadly.

Oh and I'd like to quote, "There are no athiests in a firefight."

God is just too much a part of American culture to say that religious people in general are blind.

Well, as I said in my post, I believe (just my opinion, of course) that blind faith particularly in a god, PARTICULARLY in a "personal god" demonstrates a critical flaw in that person.

I'm not saying they are bad people (many are, but not all, and not the majority), just that in my opinion they are.. Morons. Sheople.

That is quite broad and encompassing, I know. It could mean anything, and it applies to a huge group of people..

But to me it seems there's three types of "real" religious people
1) The type who have contemplated their religion and decided to accept it by lieing to themselves. I do not mean what I consider a lie, I mean what they consider a lie but have themselves accepted as truth.
A basic example of this is a fundamentalist who says he spoke directly to god, and not a metaphor.. and believes it.
This is usually a harmless fundie, since they are usually just out to steal your money and if you get taken in you get what you pay for.
There are exceptions to them being harmless, of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Museum
Even most religious people find them a bit "off".

2) The type who have contemplated their religion, and have decided they believe in their religion. They have faith. They do not need reason.
This is pry the 2nd most common type of religious person. They attend church on Sunday, they contribute what they can, etc.
This is the type of religious person I'm typically referring to when I say things like Christians are morons, or similar things. Though not limited to them, they're usually what I have in mind.
They have made a conscious decision to believe in something that degrades the world as a whole (see: 9/11) without any proof beyond their own feeling and/or group opinion. They can't understand why anyone would think differently than them, and are usually trapped in a world that exists 15 feet in front of them, no further.
They are completely stubborn and will only debate religion with you as an excuse to try and convert you. They claim to adhere to their bible's teachings, yet most have not even read it they just assume the dogma spewing from their pastor and friend's mouths is in there somewhere and makes sense.
I can't talk to these people for more than 30 to 45 seconds on the topic of religion, it's basically like having a conversation with a brick wall that has some passages from the bible graffiti'd onto it.

3) The third type is easily the most common type of religious person, the passive believer. They haven't really given their religion much thought, why bother?
This type of person is just incredibly shallow, and basically defines the word sheople. They are far too busy or are unwilling to examine what they think, so when in doubt do what the group does. Do you believe in god? Yeah. What's your favorite story from the bible? I dunno, the one with the lion.
They usually only go to church when it benefits them in a social way.
I would almost go so far as to call them agnostic, as they simply haven't examined their beliefs, they just go along with the herd.



I may have gotten too specific in those 3 categories but that's what I see when I see religious people. All 3 of them are people I basically feel sorry for because I feel they are wasting a perfectly good brain.

Idiots and assholes are a part of humanity and are certainly not limited to religion. I'm just saying that the majority of religious people? I cannot take seriously when they talk about anything even REMOTELY related to life.

I'm not sure what that's from.. Do you mean "There are no atheists in foxholes?"
I find that phrase to be completely detestable. That would pretty much be just like me saying to a devout Christian "It's ok, I know you don't REALLY believe in god, you just have to keep up the appearance of believing.", except now let's shorten it to near-slang terms like "Believer, huh? Funky."

So.. People don't have blind faith? They have faith that other americans are not wrong about having faith? faith creates faith so it's not blind? or ... what?
I don't understand that sentence.. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.. Are you saying because so many believe that it certainly couldn't be a character flaw?



P.S. To Christians: Count the number of gods you do not believe in (think hard now, it's a big number). Now add one to that. That is how many gods I do not believe in.

i think me and lcc can relate to having a pretty crappy parent. my dad is a prick. but it is a sad fact to be prejudiced agianst to that extent simply because of your beliefs or likes/dislikes and im sry "a freind" and everyone else has had to go through any of these experinces.

Yeah, plenty of straight kids have bad relationships with their parents as well.

I did mean "firefight" not "foxholes," the latter being the thing you bed in at night (if I'm getting my vocabulary straight). The reason I quote that is because A) it's quoted in the most awesomest game evar (insert subliminal COD4 propaganda here) and B) as a metaphorical statement, be it true or not, it shows that God and religion are as much a part of the world as anything else. Deep down, if pressured enough, just about everyone will hope to believe in something they may not necessarily believe is true, just to get out of that pressure (hence the firefight; they pray to God that they'll live, just to make themselves feel better).

My second statement you quoted was meant to tie in with the first. God is too much of American culture in general, along with the Gods of other cultures, to say that anyone who remotely believes in a divine figure is blind. It's almost like saying (I hope I don't make another really bad example here) that everyone who goes to MacDonald's, or eats fast food, is fat. MacDonald's / fast food is such a large part of our culture, that everyone who goes there can't possibly all be obese, me being an example.

You kind of got the point of the quote right when you said "Are you saying because so many believe that it certainly couldn't be a character flaw?" except that it shouldn't be considered a character flaw, as much as a quirk or something. Look at every famous, smart, rich, successful person, at least 90% of them have been religious. I do believe that religion can blind some people, but saying that all people that go are to some degree blind, is like saying that all atheists have no faith in anything.

Very smart people a thousand years ago thought the earth was flat. Doesn't mean they weren't blind.

I reject the sentiment that something is OK or right just because a majority of people believe it.

If someone wants to pray to a god they don't believe in because it makes them feel good then bully for them. I honestly have no problem with that. I certainly imagine doing certain things with certain fictional characters when I need cheering up ;)

I have a problem with it when people honestly believe a god exists and make important decisions based on what they're told god's will is.

Oh definitely, I completely agree with that. If someone makes a decision that affects anyone but themselves because "God told them" it was a good idea / the thing to do, then we enter a completely different realm than the one I was talking about. I thought that Liquid was saying that people in general who believe in some kind of divine being are somehow wasting brainpower.

More fun:

http://www.bgay.com/news/index.php?o...sk=view&id=269