I grew up in Idaho in a tight-knit family following the firebrand tenets of fundamentalist Christianity. So when I came out to my parents as gay in college, it ended with tears, screams and a laying on of hands. In my mid-20s, I came out again — this time in a letter sent from afar. I was determined to establish healthy boundaries with my parents, which led to years of silence between us. I tried to break that silence on more than one occasion, only to be blunted by their homophobia. Hopeful that context would change their thinking, I attempted to introduce them to my boyfriend one Christmas. My mother hung up on me. Again, years of silence followed.
More recently, my parents made a substantial effort to connect with me and the man who, in 2018, became my husband. They even made a trip to our city and made a show of acceptance, telling my partner over dinner, “We love you.” We were elated. Then, during the pandemic, my mother sent my husband — who works in health care — some disturbing Covid-19 disinformation. What began as civil correspondence escalated and ended with my mother telling my husband he would never be her son-in-law.
My parents made it clear that, in their eyes, our marriage was illegitimate. And yet they become angry when we decline invitations to family gatherings. I won’t sacrifice my husband’s well-being by forcing him to attend family functions. And I won’t cast aside the self-respect I’ve gained over years of therapy to meet my parents in their righteous space where I’m simply not welcome. I’ve made it clear that when they are ready to accept us for who we are — a loving married couple just like them — we will re-enter the family unit.
As my parents age, though, my hope that they will ever accept us dwindles. All my efforts at authentically connecting with them end with their unwillingness to consider the bigotry baked into both their worldview and their interpretation of Christianity, which, to them, is one and the same. Do I have any obligations to make further attempts to bridge this yawning gap? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
I’m so sorry to hear about what you’ve had to endure. Whatever duties we have to our parents, they don’t require us to do all the work of reconciliation. It’s perfectly reasonable to say that you won’t be joining them on family occasions unless they respect your relationship.
The hovering question, though, is whether this requires your parents to regard your marriage as religiously valid. Because marriage, for many Christians, is a sacrament — a ceremony with a specifically religious meaning — accepting gay marriage is different from treating people who are in civil same-sex marriages respectfully. You can do the latter even if you think that sex between men or between women is sinful. According to the Catholic Church and many Protestant ones, all sex outside heterosexual marriage is sinful (including masturbation), and yet lots of their members are perfectly capable of treating people who sin in this way respectfully; they know that most adults are, in this way, sinners.
That, if I understand your letter, was roughly where things stood with your parents before the recent falling-out. They had come a long way since the dark period when they sought to “pray away the gay”; they expressed respect for your relationship and love for you both. But you don’t report that they ever recognized your marriage as legitimate in God’s eyes and therefore in their own. They remained tethered to their religious convictions, even though they pulled that tether rather taut in order not to lose you.
Then an acrimonious exchange concerning your mother’s mistaken claims about Covid most likely left her feeling insulted and condescended to by your husband, and she insisted on the point that she could not accept your marriage. It’s unfortunate that she lashed out in this way; but, so far as I can see, what she said wasn’t really new.
So you have to decide whether it’s enough that your parents agree to treat you respectfully and lovingly, even if they’re unable to recognize the religious validity of your marriage. (The civil validity of your marriage is not, of course, in doubt.) The alternative is to require that they repudiate their core beliefs, a view of the world that’s regularly reinforced by their community. If you did want them to acknowledge your relationship fully, refusing to see them probably isn’t going to make it happen.
Many Christian believers come to see gay sexuality differently when they get to know gay people; this was why coming out was a good strategy for gay liberation. But the devout may then need arguments to reconcile their evolving views about gay relationships with their religious commitments. That’s the value of a book like “God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships,” by Matthew Vines; precisely because it adheres to what fundamentalists call “a high view of Scripture,” it might help your parents recognize that their current view is not the only possible Christian position.
For all that, your parents may never regard your relationship as on par with their own. I understand how difficult this is for you, given your upbringing; your sense of self-respect is, you suggest, hard-earned and perhaps fragile. And yet there’s something to be said for the implicit bargain that you previously reached — settling for love and esteem and not insisting that your parents “come into the light.” I’m not convinced that the authentic connection you talk about requires that your parents fully accept marriage equality, any more than it requires you to accept your parents’ views about purity and holiness. Often maintaining a certain distance from our kinfolk can help keep us together. The theologian Henri J.M. Nouwen memorably compared the interplay of closeness and distance in relationships to dancing: Sometimes we hold each other tightly, and sometimes we move away “and let the space between us become an area where we can freely move.”
Readers Respond
Last week’s question was from a mother whose son had been incarcerated several times and currently was in prison. They had a fraught relationship, and now he was asking for financial support and care packages. She wrote: “A small special-needs trust fund for my son established by my late father has a balance of about $20,000 after previous withdrawals for similar requests. As trustee, I have the ability to grant his requests, but I’m not inclined to do so, based on past experiences. After his second incarceration, he was out of prison for only 10 days before reoffending. What is my ethical responsibility to my son, whom I adopted when he was 6, who is Black (I am not), but whose life has shown no improvement from Day 1 despite my considerable best efforts over many years?”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “Of the things he’s asking for, legal representation seems the most important. A privately retained criminal attorney, paid for out of that dwindling trust fund, will probably be able to devote more time and resources to his case than a public defender could. Commissary money can go toward what most people consider basic necessities (soap, shampoo, toilet paper). And you’d be lifting one of the barriers to his reintegration after he leaves prison if you allowed the trust fund to pay for the court fines. Care packages, however, seem more appropriate in a relationship that’s in better shape than yours now is with him.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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As a public defender, I found the advice to prioritize using the money for a private attorney to be problematic. Public defenders usually provide fantastic representation and are often better than private attorneys who have less experience. Public defenders have relationships with judges and prosecutors, and have deep knowledge of the system from their amount of cases and time in the same courthouses. — Nikki
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I felt for the mom until she felt the need to point out that her “adopted” son was Black. I’m Black and was adopted by parents who are white. I have never heard my parents refer to me as their “adopted daughter.” That right there threw up a red flag. Then when she pointed out her son was Black, I was horrified. Is this necessary for the conversation? — Kristin
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The Ethicist completely failed to recognize the significance of the trust. It is a special needs trust. The parent’s obligations toward the son — and the reciprocal obligations of the son to the parent — must be analyzed in light of the special needs this man has. I realize the letter did not provide information about this man’s needs, but the Ethicist should not have overlooked so salient a factor in the analysis. — Michael
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It seems that this mom has an in-house expert consultant. What does that sibling recommend? Speaking of that sibling, there is a comparative hierarchy in the letter between a “good” child and the one “ bad” child that is troubling, and may have always been present. At this moment, this young man is the most in need of compassion, not the least. — Bonnie
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It’s important to remember that addiction is an illness. The son’s addiction and drug use are not character flaws, but symptoms. So sending your child, who you presumably love, care packages and giving him part of his trust fund for commissary doesn’t seem like enabling, but showing love to a person who needs to be loved despite his bad behavior. — Patricia
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