Dear Mom and Dad,
I love you both for the support you have given me over the years. It has been a long journey, but we are about to the end of it. Things will continue to improve over the next several months and I don't want you to forget the relationship we had while I was living at home.
I have to say in all honesty that my parents have been my best friends over the last eight years. In some ways, I don't want to leave home, but I'm ready to spread my wings like an young eagle about to leave its nest.Now I want to share something with you that might make you a little uncomfortable.
When I was a child, about the age to be baptized (eight years or so) I was sexually molested. I do not know who molested me, but I have do doubt that the molestation occurred. I have had sexually difficulties all of my life as a result of this experience and some others. I have decided after some deliberation that I am a gay man. I have romantic feelings for both men and women. I have no regrets about my feelings of sexual attraction and will have multiple sex partners for the rest of my life. Now I know that your religion views my sentiments as vile and apostate. Let me say that my feelings toward men and women are the most normal thing in the world for me, even if I had parents who raised me to thinks of gays and lesbians as abnormal sinners. If there is a god and my life has some intended purpose, I believe it is teach people how to love each other no matter their shape, gender, size, creed, nationality, skin color, or sexual preference. Someday I will come out of the closet, the one that I have been in for decades; I hope that you will support me in this endeavor when it occurs. I'm ready to move forward into the next stage of my life. It will be an adventure as my entire life has been so far.
I hope that I can make a difference in this world of ours.
Yours forever (especially Mom's),
(Name withheld)
"Behold I will send you Elijah...and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers..." (Malachi 4:5-6; Doctrine & Covenants 2:1-3)
Intolerence and fear of homosexulaity--often fostered by religious instituions that claim to value the family above all else--causes painful rifts bewteen homosexual children and their parents. Often devout parents feel as if they have no choice but to distance themselves from their children--never realizing that this causes as much pain to their sons and daughters as it does for themselves. Children are often too ashamed, confused or frightened to approach their parents and share what is in their hearts. Years pass and the emotional separation becomes more profound. Too often Church leaders--claiming to uphold "the sanctity of marriage" and proclaiming the family a "divine institution"--only add to the problem, demonizing gays and lesbians. Many gays and lesbians withdraw from their parents and siblings, establishing completely seperate support communities for themselves; even then the pain of having somehow lost their parents continues.
THE ELIJAH WALL is aimed at the reconciliation of homsexuals and their parents; its objective is to turn the hearts of parents and homosexual children to one another.
OUR METHOD is for homosexuals and their parents to anonymously share on this blog their honest feelings; to express the things they've kept to themselves--usually from fear of rejection or condemnation.OUR HOPE is that others--homosexual children and their parents--will read the things written on this wall, and find in them the strength to reach out to one another.
OPEN YOUR HEARTS. Write what you would say to your parents or to your gay, bisexual or transgendered son or daughter; tell them that "one thing" that you would like for them to know about the pain you have suffered, the feelings you have had to hide and the love that you have left unexpressed.
YOU NEEDN'T REVEAL YOUR NAME or any other information about your identity. Simply write your honest thoughts and feelings, and send them to:Reformmormons@aol.comPosts may be edited for grammar, but not for content.
THE ELIJAH WALL is aimed at the reconciliation of homsexuals and their parents; its objective is to turn the hearts of parents and homosexual children to one another.
OUR METHOD is for homosexuals and their parents to anonymously share on this blog their honest feelings; to express the things they've kept to themselves--usually from fear of rejection or condemnation.OUR HOPE is that others--homosexual children and their parents--will read the things written on this wall, and find in them the strength to reach out to one another.
OPEN YOUR HEARTS. Write what you would say to your parents or to your gay, bisexual or transgendered son or daughter; tell them that "one thing" that you would like for them to know about the pain you have suffered, the feelings you have had to hide and the love that you have left unexpressed.
YOU NEEDN'T REVEAL YOUR NAME or any other information about your identity. Simply write your honest thoughts and feelings, and send them to:Reformmormons@aol.comPosts may be edited for grammar, but not for content.
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