For ALL Parents During Pride

(Yes, you too)

I have a million things I’d love to say during Pride Month. How expansive and vibrant my life has become alongside the LGBTQIA+ community, how much I’ve learned from them, how generous they are. How they have given the world a Masterclass in resiliency. I could gush for infinity.

But I decided to narrow my effusive ramblings to a specific audience this year, because some of them might be listening to me, and I don’t want to waste the chance. Sorry for getting granular, but this is for you if:

1. You think you might have a gay kid.

2. You have a kid (because gay kids live silently inside millions of families).

3. Your kid has gay friends.

4. Your kid has friends (because same).

Republicans have gay kids. Southern Baptists have gay kids. People in Alabama have gay kids. Preachers have gay kids. GOP elected officials have gay kids. Country folks have gay kids. Families of color have gay kids. Macho dads have gay kids. Church people have gay kids. It’s not just us Woke Libs™ who obviously turned our sons gay by letting them play with dolls.

My point is this: whether you suspect it or not, you very well might have a gay kiddo in your house right this second. And they are listening to every word you say. They absolutely know if you feel disgust toward the LGBTQIA+ community. They totally hear the gay jokes. They see how you talk about queer characters and commercials. They clock what other people are allowed to say under your roof. They absorb every word your pastor says from the pulpit, and they register your agreement whether overtly or simply with your sustained commitment to a religious space where queer people are disparaged and excluded.

It is very obvious to them whether they will be safe in your home or not.

What we need are families committed to becoming safe before they know they need to be. Every mom and dad in America should act like one of their kids is gay. How would the language of your home change? Where would you go to church? What would you stop allowing? What hard conversations would you have with your mom and uncle and sister? How would you vote? Where would you march? What would you fight for? What would you say?

Can you imagine the relief and joy a gay kid in the closet would experience if their parent started saying:

• I love you exactly how you are.

• I will love whoever you love.

• We don’t allow homophobic language in this house.

• Your gay friends are welcome and loved here.

• You will always be safe with me.

• We will choose a church where queer people are affirmed.

• I have your back.

• I have your friends’ backs.

• You can tell me anything.

We need safe homes for gay kids to come out in long before they are ready to do so. We need places of refuge for their gay friends who know they will be rejected by their own families. Our LGBTQIA+ kids should not have to imagine traumatizing rejection for one second. They should not lay awake terrified of their own parents, afraid to jeopardize their own belonging in the family. They should not sit in church afraid someone might notice the gay on them.

Why would we want our kids to suffer like that?

And hey, maybe they are straight as a Kansas highway, but even then, all you’ve done is teach your kids how to be a good human.

I didn’t get this right soon enough. I had no idea a little baby gay was living upstairs watching her parents reckon with a theology that harmed queer people so completely. I didn’t know she was terrified of her own truth, of her good standing, of harming our Christian careers. We contended ferociously with non-affirming doctrine and finally got there, but not before we terrorized our own daughter.

To this day when I think about it, I could full body sob.

Be safe now. Go ahead and create a house that functions as a harbor now. Let’s build safe homes in every small county, every Bible belt town, every block around any given church. We can, literally, make a safer world for LGBTQIA+ kids. As their protections and safe spaces are being eliminated in real time, we will simply create the world they deserve. Because no DEI initiative on earth is as powerful as having parents who loved and affirmed you.

Make this choice now, because it might matter more than imaginable to the precious, beloved, beautiful child you tucked into bed last night.