Even when all is going well, I constantly guard myself against being too happy, aware that at any second my life could be dismantled again. Perhaps most saddening to me, and for many other children of homosexuals, is the difficulty I have in trusting the motives of older men. Family experts repeatedly point out that children of divorced parents need to have someone fill in as a father figure. But whenever an older man pays attention to me, as a father would to his son, I am plagued with the fear that he might be gay. Each time I hear this question I am flooded with insecurities.
Nobody wants to be reminded of a past they re ashamed of.
It s not easy being a skeleton. Likewise, it would be easy for me to be ashamed of my dad. But I, and others in my situation, have something more than shame to bring to the conversation between homosexuals and the church. By spending time with my father and his friends, I know firsthand what it means to be surrounded by people who don t share many of my basic desires, tastes, passions, and struggles. Similarly, I probably have a greater appreciation of the fear homosexuals must have of telling their parents that they are gay.