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NAV Are these Questions Familiar? NAV
NAV Did Your Child Come Out to You? - Parents are never prepared to accept the news that their children are gay. I will never forget that Friday night in December of 1997. NAV
NAV Is My Child Gay or Confused? - When Adam told us he was gay, we thought, "This can't be true, he's just confused". NAV
  Should I Accept My Child's Orientation? - For Patti and I, our first reaction was absolutely not. He is only 16 years old. What does he know about sexual relations? NAV
  Am I Ashamed of My Child or of Myself? - When Adam came out to us, shame was a big word in our lives. I was afraid that people would overlook Adam's wonderful qualities and focus on just one aspect of him ---- his sexual orientation. NAV
  Did My Parents Make Me Gay? - Yes, absolutely, my parents made me gay. They had sex, my mom got pregnant, and bam!...I popped out of the womb - brown hair, brown eyes, and gay! NAV
  Is Homosexuality a Sin? - When it comes to the subject of homosexuality, our religious institutions remind me of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's. NAV
  Who Can I Talk to About This? - Take comfort, you are only lost for a little while. There is a light at the end of this long, lonely path. NAV
  What is God's Plan? - How does being gay fit in God's plan? This is the hardest question to discuss. The answer will depend on whom you are talking to. NAV
  Why Would My Child Choose to be Gay? - You have just asked an important question. Ironically, once you have exhausted all of the obvious possibilities, you will probably come to understand the absurdity of the question itself. NAV
 
Other Points of Interest
 
  Our Son's Story - Adam was always a bright and happy child. He was also quite stubborn. As his father, I always found that frustrating in one respect, but I also admired it.  
  Hope... How Our Family has Progressed - After learning that Adam was gay, Patti and I were devastated. Our response was typical. We prayed for a miracle.  

 

ARTICLE OF INTEREST:

My Sister's Choice - By Michael Alvear
The following article appeared in Newsweek magazine.

AlvearMy sister constantly tells me how much her six-year-old son Ricky adores me. So when he came home with a flyer about joining a fun and exciting group for kids his age, she had a tough decision to make. Should she let him join a group that doesn't like his beloved Uncle Michael?

When the Supreme Court ruled the Boy Scouts had the right to fire scout leaders for being gay, my sister and countless parents like her got caught in an agonizing moral dilemma: Should you join a group synonymous with family values if it requires you to abandon part of your family?

The political backlash since the ruling is clear to anyone who reads the local papers. Many cities, believing the Scouts are engaging in discrimination, have told local Scout troops that they can't use parks, schools and other municipal sites. In addition, companies and charities have withdrawn hundreds of thousands of dollars in support.

But what isn't so easy to see is the division the Supreme Court decision created in millions of families like mine.

When my sister first called to tell me she was thinking of putting Ricky in the Cub Scouts (a program run by the Boy Scouts of America) I could hear the torment in her voice.

Ricky is a bright, athletic boy who suffers from a shyness so paralyzing he doesn't have any friends. The other day she asked whom he had played with during recess. "Nobody," he mumbled in reply, looking at the floor. "I just scratched the mosquito bites on my leg till it was time to go back to class."

It breaks my sister's heart to see what Ricky's shyness is doing to him. Karate, softball and soccer leagues helped, but not nearly enough. In another age, she wouldn't have thought twice about joining the Scouts. But now the decision has taken on an unsettling ethical dimension.

"I don't understand why they're making me take sides in my own family," she said about the Boy Scout policy. "They're putting me in an awful position: To help my son I have to abandon my brother."

My sister was up against some disturbing questions. Should she violate her sense of family loyalty for the social needs of her son? Or keep her values intact and deny her son the possibility of overcoming his shyness? The Boy Scouts created the unimaginable: A moral quandary about joining the most wholesome group in America.

My sister was afraid she'd be doing the same thing parents did a generation ago when they joined country clubs that didn't allow blacks and Jews. They too rationalized their membership by saying the group's wholesome activities would be good for the kids.

There was one thing my sister and her husband were not conflicted about: Me. "No way are we putting Ricky in the Scouts if this is an issue for you," she said. "Blood is thicker than camping." Still, she wanted to know how I'd feel if my nephew became a scout.

I felt completely torn but I answered with as much certainty as I could muster. "I am not getting in the way of what's best for a six-year-old," I told her. Ironically, I found myself arguing for Ricky to join the Scouts. It's families that teach morality, I told her, not after-school groups. Besides, it's not like the Scouts actually preach anti-gay messages to the kids.

Or do they? Is it really inconceivable that kids who know why the President of the United States was impeached wouldn't ask why gay people aren't allowed in the Scouts? And what would the Scouts response to the kids be? I was shaken by the possibility of my nephew listening to trusted grown-ups trying to convince him his Uncle Michael is something to be scared of.

One night I had a terrible dream of a Boy Scout official pointing me out to Ricky and saying "See that guy? The one you love more than any other man except your father? He's not allowed in here."

I woke up feeling a kind of enraged helplessness. How could I mean so much to my family and so little to so many outside of it? I was deeply torn, but ultimately I knew I could live with the indignity of my nephew belonging to a group that discriminates against his uncle; what I couldn't live with was the guilt of denying Ricky a chance to improve his life.

A decision this complicated requires time and a lot more information. So my sister, a mom torn between loyalty to her brother and concern for her son, heads to next month's introductory Scouts meeting with her husband.

Will they put Ricky in the Scouts? I don't know. But as the date of the meeting approaches I can't help but think how unfair it is for her to pass under that imaginary sign hanging over every Scouts meeting: "Your Son is Welcome, But Your Brother is Not."

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