Today, I’m wearing purple to raise awareness of anti-gay bullying. I’m not wearing purple for my kids, though. Gay or straight, my children are growing up in a home where they know that they and the people they love will be accepted. They know their parents will not tolerate–or perpetuate–homophobic bullying.
It’s your kids I’m wearing purple for today. You, over there…the one who believes that being gay is a choice, that being gay is a sin, that being gay is going to send your child or someone else’s to hell. You, in whose home a gay child will grow up being too afraid to share who he* really is, who will hide his true self out of fear of losing your love, who will hurt or kill himself because he doesn’t believe it will ever get better.
Your child is the one I’m wearing purple for today.
If you suspect, or know, your child is gay, here’s a few simple things you can do:
Don’t try to beat the gay out of him.
Don’t try to pray the gay out of him.
Don’t send him away to be reprogrammed.
Don’t try to have him committed.
Don’t ignore bullying at school because “boys will be boys.”
Don’t ignore bullying because it will “toughen him up.”
Don’t bully him.
Don’t mock him.
Don’t ridicule him.
Don’t try to “make a man out of him.”
Don’t tell him he’s a sinner.
Don’t tell him he’s going to hell.
Don’t tell him his love is less than yours.
Don’t tell him his love is wrong.
Don’t tell him he is wrong.
Don’t tell him he is unloved.
Don’t tell him he is unworthy of being loved.
LOVE HIM.
If you can’t do the things on that list, if you cannot love your child and treat him like a human being of equal worth, with equal rights, perfectly created by God to be exactly who he is, then for God’s sake and your child’s, send him to me. I’ll open my doors to him, because I’d rather have him safe and cared-for here than abused and bullied to the point of hurting himself there. Or…or…won’t you try letting go of your hate and your fear and your ignorance, embracing your LGBTQ child, telling him how much you love him, that he is cherished in your home, that you will keep him safe and will never, ever, ever perpetuate bigotry, hate, or homophobia.
Can’t you do that? Can’t you wear purple in your own heart for YOUR child and the children of others?
*I say “he” in this post because the tragic bullying-related teen suicides in the media lately have all been among seemingly-cisgendered males who either self-identified as gay or were labeled gay by others, but for those of you with lesbian daughters, for those of you with transgendered children, for those of you with bisexual or genderqueer children, please apply the same rules.
