If My Son is Gay

Now that the title has got your attention, welcome to my opinion. Please do read on, even if you disagree with me, which most of you will.

I have for the longest time wondered about this, but not with any kind of fear. There were never words like geez, yuck, OMG, sick etc associated with my thoughts. My thoughts were purely from a parental instinct point of view. I have wondered, in great detail, on how I would face and handle such a scenario.

So, if one day I came to realise that my son was gay, this is what I probably would do. I am quite mature and fortunate enough to know that his sexuality was NOT his "choice", which is contrary to what a majority of my well educated friends believe. It is what he is. It is what he was made to be. It is what he has become. So first things first: I will accept him as he is. I will accept and love him just the way he is. Even if the whole world is against him, I will stand by him and allow him to be what he is. I will encourage him to not be fooled into thinking that he can "change" if he want to. I mean, how stupid is that? In the work that I do as a counselor, I have met with numerous gay men, who literally beg and plead with me to help them change their sexual orientation. Without support, the weight is too much for them to bear, and change is the only option they see. Sadly, even the well educated ones believe that it's some sort of an illness that can be treated and changed. So much for education and common sense.
I will defend my son anywhere and everywhere. I have personally seen the pain, trauma and torture people go through, at the hands of their own family, friends and society, simply because of their sexual orientation. I will not allow that to happen. No one deserves that. Surely not my son.

One thing I am absolutely sure about, after a lot of thought is that his sexuality will NOT be a family secret. That's one less closet in my house. As if we all don't have enough skeletons to deal with now. My family, including the extended ones, MUST be aware of his orientation. How they feel about it is not my concern. To accept it or not is their "choice", since they believe in having a choice. My only wish and hope is that apart from me, his own mother would be able to love him, just like she loves him now.

The world will never go kind on him. Yes, things are changing and slowly people are beginning to see the truth and understand it, but in my country we still have a long way to go. I will teach him to never expect and assume that he will be accepted as he is. But he has my assurance that I will never allow the world to tear him down. I am pretty sure that by the time he is an adult, he would not need me. He will be strong enough to protect himself.

In these last few days, since the supreme court ruling in USA, a lot has been debated about this, right here in India and right here in my friends circle. The most common comments or arguments againts the ruling is that, its unnatural, its againts the will of God, its a mental illness and so on. And trust me when I say that all these comments come from really well educated people, some even more educated than me. So much for education. What these people focus on while commenting, is only in regards to sex. They simply fail to see that for a homosexual, there is a lot more at stake than the simple need to have sex with another of their own kind. There is a whole lot more. It's also about their freedom to love another human being. It's also about their right to have a family. It's about their right to raise a child. Imagine telling a woman who cannot conceive that she has no right to raise a child because she cannot "naturally" conceive. Therefore she cannot adopt and raise a child. Imagine that. That's unfair. Everyone has a right to have and raise a family. Not even ones sexuality must come in the way of these basic human rights. 
So the law passed in USA and even article 377 fiasco in India is not just about the right to have sex. Sex is just a part of it. It's a whole lot more.

If you are reading this and if you are a parent to someone who is gay, please love and accept them. If you are someone who is gay and unaccepted, don't blame those who don't accept you. They don't know better.

So, coming back to my son, who knows what he will turn out to be in the years ahead. It does not make a difference to me because the LOVE that we share, transcends everything else. And for those scripture thumping folks who are so damn keen on quoting the bible, I am sure you have read 1 Corinthians 13, where towards the end it says that there is Faith, Hope and Love, and the greatest of these is LOVE. Even John and Paul said, all you need is LOVE. Not the apostles, the Beatles.