Colo. Legislator stands up for gay son...

[spiro3]

From the land of Focus on the Family, this morning I found the following story in the Rocky Mt News very moving....http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/legislature/article/0,1299,DRMN_37_3716734,00.html.

 

Perhaps it touched me because I know my Dad would never had stood up for me had he known I was gay. How many others on this board could count on their fathers to do the same as this legislator?

[+ Charlie]

I'm pretty certain my father would have stood up for me--he knew I was gay and never seemed to have a problem with it.

[kjun]

For many years I did not know what my parents would do in such a situation. The time finally came when something happened and they had to face the issue and I'm happy and proud to say they did not even flinch. They stood by me as a mother and father should.

 

the Cajun

[Bilbo]

Colorado Springs, where I grew up, is unfortunately known for all of the religious right organizations which seem to HQ there. It was always a place of a large military contingent and clean industry. Tourism does not seem to have lead it to liberalism. Colleges lead to Bible colleges, lead to these nuts. Also fed, perhaps, by the large numbers of military retiring there.

However, that is not all that it is about. From a small city with 2.5 gay bars (Every time a third would open, one of them would have to close for lack of business within a year.), it has also grown to a city which houses one of the largest gay charitable giving foundations in the country.

 

My Father was a scrawny, sickly man by the time I knew him. I never came out to him for fear of his health. However, the way he stood behind me for everything else, I have no doubt he would have been behind me. And my Mother - well, all those years when I was using my talents to raise money for the AIDS fight, she would probably have rather I was making money for myself in NYC, but, when I gave her a picture of myself in drag to share what was, at that time, a large part of my life, I told her to put it in the bottom of the picture drawer. She framed it and put it on a shelf in my old bedroom. And the only negative thing she ever said about it was that it looked like I had a smudge on my glove and Southern ladies (obviously she included me in that group from her tone of voice) do not go out of the house with a smudge on their gloves.

 

Gut level responses, both of these, entered here before I've read the article, which I assure I now shall do.