I sat in my living room watching Modern Family with my dad and my mom mom
When my mom mom turns to my dad and says,
Todd I am so proud of you for not having any homosexual children.
Now I realize this could’ve been the moment I come out.
But instead of feeling like that was my open door,
I felt like someone had just pushed me back inside the closet
And slammed it shut.
When you think of a homophobic person,
You imagine someone who is mean and extremely religious.
But my mom mom is a kind and generous woman.
Anyone can be homophobic.
I was homophobic.
Raised in a “Christian” household I grew up in a church.
My roots were in prayer and god was my sun.
I shamed gays and eventually
I shamed myself.
You always hear how people come out to their families,
but next time,
Ask them how they came out to themselves.
Because that is the hardest part.
Or at least it was for me.
I ripped up all my roots, blocked out the sun, and dug into myself
To change the parts of me I thought were law.
Things my dad had preached to my church
About gays being an abomination
And now here I am, the abomination he spoke so often of.
Once you start realizing your parents weren’t always right,
You have to start making your own judgments.
What do you believe in anymore if up to that point,
Every opinion you defended was one you took from your parents,
Passed down to you like character traits.
My dad and I are both stubborn
And we were both homophobic until
I started not just wanting to be certain pretty girls,
But I stared wanting to be on certain pretty girls.
I had to change every part of me that hated myself
And I found so much love in me that I never thought I had
And suddenly a lot of things made sense.
In a perfect world, my family would dig up their roots too.
Look to God and realize that
He is about love for everyone without the “no ****” before it.
God is not homophobic.
My family is.
