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I realize there are many answers to my question, the most obvious probably being religious. This is so sad to me. I'm glad that funds have been raised for her. I couldn't have children, but I would have been proud to have a daughter like Emily. I wish her much happiness. I hope her parents come to their senses. I think of all the parents who have lost their kids in so many mass shootings in the past year who would give anything to have their child back, no matter what their sexual preference. What a stupid thing to disown your child over.
I would not jump for joy but I would welcome their spouse because that was what made my kid happy. I do not presume to tell a gay person they are not happy.
I realize there are many answers to my question, the most obvious probably being religious. This is so sad to me. I'm glad that funds have been raised for her. I couldn't have children, but I would have been proud to have a daughter like Emily. I wish her much happiness. I hope her parents come to their senses. I think of all the parents who have lost their kids in so many mass shootings in the past year who would give anything to have their child back, no matter what their sexual preference. What a stupid thing to disown your child over.
We like to believe that we are evolved and intelligent and modern, but when you get right down to it, we are still savages in many ways. This is the same sort of shunning that primitive peoples did for millenia; shut out those that are disfigured or ill or are "different".
Islamic extremists would be throwing this person off a roof or stoning them to death per Sharia law; we like to pretend that we are so much better, but the cruel act of disowning a child is really no different. In some ways it is worse since in many cases it forever damages the child.
This is very shortsighted and hard hearted of the parents, we don't throw our kids away when they disappoint us, even if it is something that is personally devastating. Jesus didn't throw people away when they sinned, He loved them and at the same time told them to "go and sin no more". We serve a God of endless grace so why would we show anything less to our kids when they hurt us?
My guess: she was raised in a very devout Catholic family and was very sheltered growing up. College was her first experience outside of the "womb", so to speak, and she is a female athlete where peer pressure to be gay is greater than in most areas of college life. My daughter went to a notoriously liberal state college and knew several people, fresh out of Mom and Dad's house and granted personal freedom for the first time in their lives, who thought it would be cool to be gay so they experimented with it and then after college, what do you know, they settled down in a heterosexual relationship, arguing that sexuality is "fluid" (I guess this is the new term now) and that they weren't really gay at all, just experimenting.
So for these parents to disown someone who is 19 and out on her own for the first time in her life for living in a way that they don't agree with is shooting themselves in the foot because what if she does decide that she isn't gay after all is said and done? How do they make amends with her then after proving that their love for her is conditional upon living the way that they expect her to?
God doesn't stop loving us or disown us when we disappoint Him, and isn't He supposed to be a Christian's model of how to treat people?
It's sad when this happens but if you can cast your child out because of his or her sexuality, then they don't deserve to have a relationship in the first place. A friend of mine ran away from home after he came out to his parents. They told him they were taking him to a conversion therapy facility in the morning. He packed everything he could and left in the middle of the night, never to return. Now they are missing out on a relationship with their son, their grandkids, etc. And for what? Pretty sad how religious beliefs will divide a family.
Disowning your gay children is like a death sentence for some children. To choose religion over one’s own children should be a crime. Those children are yours to support until they are of legal age. ( usually 18). It just disgusts me to think they would shut their own blood out of their life because of sexual preference. Religion is man made. Who wrote the Bible? Not god. So the premise of god saying to disown your gay children is unchristian. Jesus would have never sanctioned that.
Either because of embarrassment (cultural / family) and some for religious issues.
Islam and Judaism forbids homosexuality as an example. Christianity does not as Christ was never against anyone and demands his adherends to love everybody.
I could never disown my children for something like this. It is not a choice for them, it is not a choice for me.
No person says "Hey- I want to be in the largest minority in the world, resoundingly persecuted, shamed, belittled and often attacked or killed".
I happen to be Catholic, and I believe in the teachings of Christ. You should never cast out lest you be cast out.
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