"Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore"
"Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore"
"Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore"#1
Posted: 6/20/07 at 4:43pm
This is what Sean Kennedy said to him mother when he told her he was gay. Sean was killed about a month ago outside a bar. His killer uttered anti gay epithets both before and after the attack. Now his mother, who decided to still love him, is left fighting for a hate crimes bill in South Carolina. Yet some, both here and in Washington, feel we don't need a hate crimes law. How many 20 year olds have to be burried? How many have to have their parents take them up on Sean's offer?
It is incredibly telling that those who oppose hate crimes legislation are people who hate. And more telling that many of those hate in the name of Jesus Christ.
http://www.q-notes.com/top2007/top01_061607.html
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#2
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:09pm
What kind of world do we live in where a child is scared that his/her parent won't love him/her b/c of sexual orientation.
The fact that this poor child actually thought that tells me more about the way that homosexuals in America face pervasive discrimination and abuse more than just about anything I have ever heard.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/9/03
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#2
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:11pmYes, hate crimes exists and they are a terrible thing that should be legislated. However, as sad as this story is (and I am not making light of it, believe me) isn't ANYONE disgusted that a gay child would say, "If you don't want to love me because I am gay, I understand." What a f'd up attitude. Why would it ever be understandable for a parent to stop loving a child? Especially if he just happened to be GAY for F's sake?
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#3
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:21pm
I'm not disgusted by the child's approach to coming out to his mother. It is a bit passive-agressive, but on the whole, I see it as a type of emotional self-preservation. A kind of preparing for the worst, hoping for the best.
I think he was saying I will accept whatever your decision is as I hope you will accept mine.
The disgusting thing, to me, would be if the parent said, "Ok, I stop loving you. Go away. Don't come back."
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/9/03
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#4
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:23pmThen it was at the least a manipulitive move on the child's part. Still, it is a bit Judy Blumish for my taste.
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#5
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:30pm
Judy Blumish!!! Yes, indeed.
The coming out process is very complicated. Hurt feelings all around. Should the child have been the bigger more understanding and emotionally evolved person? Maybe. But it could be asked Why would a child need to take this approach with a parent if he/she didn't think they might be rejected.
Very few coming outs are emotionally mature events.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/9/03
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#6
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:39pmIt actually seems more like a mother inventing a sound bite about a son who cannot refute her than something somebody would actually say.
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#7
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:44pmI've seen people get disowned by their folks for coming out, people who never for a moment would have expected that reaction, so while I'll allow that it could have been a soundbite invented by the mother, I don't think it's that outlandish to think the kid actually said it.
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#8
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:46pm
That is possible of course.
But I've known MANY passive-aggressive gay (mostly men) people who have shared their coming out stories and they said exactly the same thing or something similar. They anticipated rejection and tried to use guilt to lessen the blow.
Personally, I don't think it is the best approach. But without the support of an understanding gay fellowship, it is the best approach many young people can come up with.
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#9
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:47pm
I'm not all that surprised that he said that.
I would obviously hope that if I was in his situation my parents would still love me, but I would possibly say that, as even if they wouldn't love me anymore, I would want that at least they would be able to live with the fact and try to move on with it but behind us, but accepted.
deep-delving, dark, deliberate you would say
browsing on spire and bogland; but today
our sky-blue slates are steaming in the sun,
our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
like racehorses. We contemplate at last
shining windows, a future forbidden to no one.
Derek Mahon
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
Arthur Miller
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#10
Posted: 6/20/07 at 5:52pmI know several people as well who's parents "stopped" loving them (or mine as well have) when they came out. So sad.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/9/03
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#11
Posted: 6/20/07 at 6:13pmIt is not the thought of a parent not loving a child if he or she is gay that I question, it is the fact that a child would "understand" if the parent did not "want" to love the child any longer. If he had said, "I understand that by me telling you this you may not love me anymore..." or "If you choose to stop loving me because of this, that is your choice, but..."
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#12
Posted: 6/20/07 at 7:26pm
If he had said, "I understand that by me telling you this you may not love me anymore..." or "If you choose to stop loving me because of this, that is your choice, but..."
He was a 20 year old kid in South Carolina. Perhaps he hadn't he yet learned the sort of self-empowering talk you're wishing he'd said.
Or maybe he said something along those lines and he's being misquoted.
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#13
Posted: 6/21/07 at 1:49amJesus--make a mountain out of a molehill and completely miss the point of this story/thread. Some of the city folk around here need to get a clue that the rest of the country ain't Oz. It's ****ing Kansas.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#14
Posted: 6/21/07 at 2:17am
Updated On: 6/21/07 at 02:17 AM
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#15
Posted: 6/21/07 at 7:33amI agree with Jerby. And everyone's coming out is different and based on their own unique situation. Perhaps this young man had tremendous empathy for the reaction his sexuality may cause.
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#16
Posted: 6/21/07 at 8:40am
I expect to get shredded for the comments below, but please read them as opinions regarding the law and not morals.
Regarding hate crimes, I find them difficult to define, and even more difficult to legislate and enforce. My understanding of our laws is that one is punished for their actions and not their thoughts. While I'm completely in agreement about the fact that such acts are reprehensible, I'm not sure I agree that they should be a separate class of crimes under our laws. In no way do I think classifying hate crimes acts as a deterrent, nor do I believe that they serve any long-term goal of improving society. I'm all for legislation that targets discrimination, but I don't see hate crimes as serving a useful purpose.
re: 'Mom, I understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#17
Posted: 6/21/07 at 9:16am
My understanding of our laws is that one is punished for their actions and not their thoughts.
Not so. A person's intent when committing a crime is often taken into consideration for sentencing/punishment. For example, crimes of passion are often punished less severely than premeditated ones. While I agree that it's hard to come up with a set of legislative criteria for what constitutes a "hate crime," it completely makes sense to me that those crimes would be dealt with differently.
'mom, i understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#18
Posted: 6/21/07 at 9:32ami look forward to a day when the mere utterance of the word faggot in any circumstance by anyone other than a gay man (sorry bisexuals, make a f*cking decision why don't you) is punishable by an automatic 60 days in jail and $500 fine for a first offense and graduated mandatory jail sentences and fines thereafter. persons claiming to be gay would have to prove it by tossing harvey fierstein's salad, coaxing wood from arthur laurents and letting jake deckard top him. not necessarily in that order. i can't wait to add more words to this list of words that cannot be uttered.
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'mom, i understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#19
Posted: 6/21/07 at 9:43am
You're such a hetero, Papa. And it's not like coaxing wood from Arthur Laurents is difficult.
As for the mentioned quote, having parents who now say they love me but quite obviously feel VASTLY different about me than they did before they knew, I can say I understand where this kid was coming from. KNowing the religion to which my parents subscribe, I can't help but say I, too, understand why they don't love me in quite the same way anymore. It doesn't mean I approve and it doesn't mean I think they're dead wrong about it, but I know the religion. And I understand.
'mom, i understand if you don't want to love me anymore'#20
Posted: 6/21/07 at 3:11pm
A lesson from the playground: smear the queer
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
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