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Homosexual parents seem to usually end up with heterosexual children. Should the heterosexual child reject his or her heterosexual orientation to demonstrate loyalty to the parents?
Or from their point of view, should the parents reject the child for failing to be homosexual?
My own belief is that while you may choose your sexual acts, you don't choose your sexual orientation. From my point of view the question might be better posed as: Do you love particular sexual activity more than your parents.
However, the sexual orientation issue is only one reason religious parents may reject their children.
Marrying outside of their religious faith is the one I am far more familiar with. Leaving a particular religious denomination to join another, or rejecting religious faith altogether are others.
Then we have:
Do you love your non-X wife/husband more than your X-denomination parents?
Do you love denomination Y more than your X-denomination parents?
Do you love your non-theism more than your theistic parents?
Your post has nothing to do with my question. Sorry--you're just way off. I answered with the reason for my question already.
I didn't bring up love for sexuality. I mentioned how a guy was disowned for being gay. That has nothing to do with love for sexuality. Being gay doesn't mean you love sex anymore than being straight does.
I didn't bring up love for sexuality. I mentioned how a guy was disowned for being gay. That has nothing to do with love for sexuality. Being gay doesn't mean you love sex anymore than being straight does.
You mentioned someone that let their sexuality divide him from his parents. You suggest the parents were wrong...but how do you know the parents were wrong? Why is identifying as gay more important than a relationship with his parents?
You mentioned someone that let their sexuality divide him from his parents. You suggest the parents were wrong...but how do you know the parents were wrong? Why is identifying as gay more important than a relationship with his parents?
No parents should feel their relationship is lost simply because their child refuses to lie about their sexual orientation for them.
You mentioned someone that let their sexuality divide him from his parents. You suggest the parents were wrong...but how do you know the parents were wrong? Why is identifying as gay more important than a relationship with his parents?
Assuming we are getting a reasonably accurate presentation of the situation, to me it is clear the parent are in the wrong. They are the ones using the relationship as blackmail, demanding that the child change or be cast aside. The parent s have a right to believe what they want, but I feel it is wrong of them to use their relationship as leverage to try to coerce their child into, well, pretty much anything!
Now this goes both ways. If a child were to threaten to break the relationship with his parents if they didn't give up their religion, that would also be wrong. You have a right to decide your own path in life, but emotionally blackmailing others in order to control them is not ok.
Jesus famously said that whoever loves his family more than him is not worthy of him. Many Christians take that literally. And don't forget the story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his own son Isaac.
The fear of hell does terrible things to people. Literally anything is better than being tortured for eternity, including abandoning / hating your own children.
It seems that most of my friends who were religious at one point were raised that way by parents who loved their church more than they loved them. I have friends who were beat for not being faithful enough, who were forced to go to church with threats of going to hell if they didn't, and then when they became an adult and left their religion, they were disowned by their parents who never wanted to talk to them again.
I have a friend who had a mother who disowned him, but when she was in hospice before she died, she e-mailed him to tell him that god will never love or accept him for being gay and leaving his church.
I've gathered the impression that religion is only a way of life for parents who want to control their kids, and will quickly cut ties with them if they betray the family name and refuse to hold the same beliefs.
Maybe you should broaden your circle of acquaintances. Or watch stuff on television that doesn't depict religious people with a bunch of lazy stereotypes. Because the very large majority of religious parents do not threaten their children with hell and respect the spiritual choices of their adult children.
My children are far more active in our Episcopal diocese than my wife and I. They volunteer for everything, from counseling at inner city summer camps to performing in the choir. None of this was done with our coercion. If anything, we've had to tell them to cut back in order to make more time for their studies.
Maybe you should broaden your circle of acquaintances. Or watch stuff on television that doesn't depict religious people with a bunch of lazy stereotypes. Because the very large majority of religious parents do not threaten their children with hell and respect the spiritual choices of their adult children.
My children are far more active in our Episcopal diocese than my wife and I. They volunteer for everything, from counseling at inner city summer camps to performing in the choir. None of this was done with our coercion. If anything, we've had to tell them to cut back in order to make more time for their studies.
That's the difference between the episcopal church and fundamentalist Christian churches.
It seems that most of my friends who were religious at one point were raised that way by parents who loved their church more than they loved them. I have friends who were beat for not being faithful enough, who were forced to go to church with threats of going to hell if they didn't, and then when they became an adult and left their religion, they were disowned by their parents who never wanted to talk to them again.
I have a friend who had a mother who disowned him, but when she was in hospice before she died, she e-mailed him to tell him that god will never love or accept him for being gay and leaving his church.
I've gathered the impression that religion is only a way of life for parents who want to control their kids, and will quickly cut ties with them if they betray the family name and refuse to hold the same beliefs.
Your friends liklye have a personal problem from what I have seen.
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