Any Gay or Lesbian Relatives?

[chloe]

If your a Homophobe does it make you avoid that relative? My Cousins son is gay. My cousin is half italian half irish and he was damn mad about his boy being gay. They had to go to therapy over it. I think my real dad is bi-sexual, but leans towards the ladies.

[Abbey Marie]

I had a gay cousin. He was married, had two kids. When they were around 12-14, he announced he was gay, and split for San Francisco, leaving his wife to raise them. He died a few years later of AIDS, so you can imagine his lifestyle there. He was older than I, but was the relative I liked most to catch up with at weddings. Once he came out and moved away, no one saw him again until my Aunt had to bury him.

If he was still here, I am sure we would still talk. But I will always think that what he did to his kids was wrong.

[DragonStryk72]

If your a Homophobe does it make you avoid that relative? My Cousins son is gay. My cousin is half italian half irish and he was damn mad about his boy being gay. They had to go to therapy over it. I think my real dad is bi-sexual, but leans towards the ladies.

My dad. He was born into a huge Irish Catholic family, and in those times, being gay just wasn't really talked about. He spent more than half of his life trying to "play it straight", but it broke down on him time and again. We didn't know about it at all, in fact, not until we were all pretty much grown. His attempts to keep his life a secret were at the core of what drove him into alcoholism, until I was 2 yrs old, when he finally went to his first AA meeting. He stayed sober, but he still didn't come out about being gay. He kept it completely silent until I was in 7th grade, when he finally admitted it to himself on a retreat, and apparently, laid it out to my mom when he got back.

My dad didn't really change anything he was doing once he did come out, he was still the same person, he was just generally more at ease with himself.

[chloe]

My dad is hairdresser when he's not a dope dealer, the gays in the salon were aways good to me. I guess that was hard for your dad Dragon but at least he's sober and happy now.

[PostmodernProphet]

nobody in the family, though I had a gay couple as business partners for about six years.....they bought a half interest in a business I had and then after a while, bought the other half....

by the way, does your new avatar indicate you are bi-pachyderm?

[DragonStryk72]

My dad is hairdresser when he's not a dope dealer, the gays in the salon were aways good to me. I guess that was hard for your dad Dragon but at least he's sober and happy now.

Well, the situations were different I think. My nana was a doom and gloom Irish Catholic, meaning that she essentially believed everyone was going to hell until proven otherwise. My dad also made a bigger deal out of it than it was, spending decade into making a monster out of nothing. I remember when he finally told me, just after I got out of the Navy, he sat me down for a talk. If you knew my dad, then you would know I was already alarmed, because no good comes of him saying he wants to talk, and he starts in with this whole big lead up to the reveal, which alarms me even further, cause I start thinking he's gonna tell me he has terminal cancer or something.

Whatever reaction he thought I was going to give, I doubt it was, "Ohthankgod" (yes, said so fast it was all one word.). I mean, I had gay friends, male and female, and my fiancee at the time was bi, it wasn't as if I was going to freak out. See, my dad knows that for someone reason, I seem to magnetically attract broken or outcast people, so the chance that I'm going to freak out over this was low.

[chloe]

Well, the situations were different I think. My nana was a doom and gloom Irish Catholic, meaning that she essentially believed everyone was going to hell until proven otherwise. My dad also made a bigger deal out of it than it was, spending decade into making a monster out of nothing. I remember when he finally told me, just after I got out of the Navy, he sat me down for a talk. If you knew my dad, then you would know I was already alarmed, because no good comes of him saying he wants to talk, and he starts in with this whole big lead up to the reveal, which alarms me even further, cause I start thinking he's gonna tell me he has terminal cancer or something.

Whatever reaction he thought I was going to give, I doubt it was, "Ohthankgod" (yes, said so fast it was all one word.). I mean, I had gay friends, male and female, and my fiancee at the time was bi, it wasn't as if I was going to freak out. See, my dad knows that for someone reason, I seem to magnetically attract broken or outcast people, so the chance that I'm going to freak out over this was low.

Thats cool Dragon. yeah my mom and dad divorced when I was 5 and each were in there own religious cults so we didnt have that kind of mainstream religious theme to deal with. Plus for as long as I can remember my dad dealt dope and I was always high even as a little kid.

Thanks to my dad I guess I grew up exposed to alot of things from him. He is more like a guy who will have sex with anyone male or female, I guess he's a whore. Whereas you dads more responsible man and just has a sexual preference. It's nice that you were so accepting.

[DragonStryk72]

Thats cool Dragon. yeah my mom and dad divorced when I was 5 and each were in there own religious cults so we didnt have that kind of mainstream religious theme to deal with. Plus for as long as I can remember my dad dealt dope and I was always high even as a little kid.

Thanks to my dad I guess I grew up exposed to alot of things from him. He is more like a guy who will have sex with anyone male or female, I guess he's a whore. Whereas you dads more responsible man and just has a sexual preference. It's nice that you were so accepting.

Well, my dad is still Catholic, actually. He never really lost his faith in anything other than himself. There was no reason not to be accepting, it's a preference, on he fought his whole life against, and that's just the way that God made him. He didn't change his voice when he came out, nothing. He's still the same former Marine he used to be (He was getting drafted into the Army in Vietnam, but decided he wanted a choice, so tore up his draft notice and enlisted).

I always sort of thought that people made too much out of Christianity, myself. Jesus always seemed to be talking about a more quiet, individual faith based on open acceptance and forgiveness of others. For me, I went through the Bible, and I weighed everything against the messages that Jesus gave, and if something didn't seem to balance with that message, I dropped it, because Christ came to change the way we were doing things, obviously because we had become out of balance with the True Word of God. Oddly, I think they had it about right in Dogma when Salma Hayek's character said, "It doesn't matter what you have faith in... just that you have it."

My Dad actually tested my faith, going part by part over the various beliefs that came from the doom and gloom crowd, about hell and everything. I say the same now as I did then, "The God I believe in wouldn't do that". At the time, he was incredibly shocked by it, and I did not understand why, because it seemed to be a simple, straight-forward answer, but that was just before my dad came to his decision to admit the truth to himself and my mother. I found out later, at his 30-year anniversary in AA (my parents divorced just after I graduated High School, much to the relief of us all) that what I had said back then was part of the reason that he came out during that retreat.

[SassyLady]

If your a Homophobe does it make you avoid that relative? My Cousins son is gay. My cousin is half italian half irish and he was damn mad about his boy being gay. They had to go to therapy over it. I think my real dad is bi-sexual, but leans towards the ladies.

Well, I'm not a homophobe....my mother-in-law is gay and been in her relationship for over 30 years.

One of my sister's came out of prison with a girlfriend and they were in a relationship for a couple of years and then she went back to men .... so I guess she is bi-sexual.

I've had clients that were gay - two from San Francisco and one in Memphis, TN.

And, I live in an area where gays are very prominent....but are not the flamboyant kind....just regular people.