Conditional Love Part 2 (Gay Child edition)

[Red Ryder]

We had friends over this last weekend that we haven’t seen in over a year. The usually pleasantries were exchanged as we ate dinner and then the teenagers all left for their typical Saturday night activities leaving 6 of us adults sitting around to chat. The conversation turned serious as our friends confided in us that their second oldest son came out as gay back in November.

The frustrating part was watching the conversation unfold with qualifying statements like “He still wants to be part of the church and knows he can’t act on his feelings.” I’ll give the parents credit for not flipping out and disowning the kid but it was clearly apparent that they were only accepting this under the terms the church has laid out.

Live the law of chastity.
No marriage
Don’t act upon feelings.
Stay the course
Live a lonely life without a same sex spouse
Or marry a heterosexual mate.

Conditional love at its finest.

[stealthbishop]

We can only hope the parents will continue a journey towards full acceptance and love of their child. The programming on this goes very deep. This issue will never go away and the LDS church is kidding themselves if they think they can, through clever PR, dismiss this issue. It will haunt the church and its members forever until the necessary changes are made. I'm so sad for the damage that is done in the meantime. I hope the child is able to find support and acceptance in other ways.

[moksha]

If you know the LDS Church will hurt you and your parents are LDS, does it follow that they too will hurt you? If the parents do not wish to hurt the LGBTQ child, how do they separate from this conditional love? It seems to me they would be forced to think for themselves. I imagine Elder Gong has performed the required mental gymnastics needed to make this work. Has he publically shared this?

[Hagoth]

The best advice to these parents, even though it may be as hard as discovering that their eternal family has been polluted by gayness, would be to help their kid get out of the church and into a life that is not stomped all over by old men in an ivory tower. Someday, if the church ever outgrows its bigotry, he can always come back.

Meanwhile the church-owned state senate - who make such a big public point of not tolerating bullies - continues to show their compassion and unconditional love by ganging up on 4 transgender student athletes (out of 75,000 state-wide), only one of which wants to play competitively.

[IT_Veteran]

Our lives have been simpler in a lot of ways but I am exceptionally grateful I made the decision to leave *and* to reevaluate my attitudes toward LGBTQ+ when I did. My oldest was 17, middle was 13, and youngest was three.

Since then, my wife has come out as bisexual. My oldest has dates several non-binary people and doesn’t seem to care one way or the other which body parts people have.

My middle child has continued to evaluate sexuality and gender and first came out to us as bisexual a few months after I left the church. Since then, he’s identified as gay and more recently recognized that he is transgender. Because of the religious upbringing, I think it’s taken him this long just to admit each step to himself, and kind of test the waters in regards to identity.

And my youngest, now seven, has recently decided to go by a different name (now insists on Darkness) and uses they/them pronouns. This child was born female and still identifies that way, but is figuring out their identity in other ways.

All that to say… this would’ve really stressed me out as a Mormon dad. Now I can just love and support each kid in the way that they need.