This is a letter I mailed to my father, after receiving a text about how I was in his thoughts. I've long thought about how I could ever achieve some sort of 'resolution' to the ongoing standoff their religious shunning had forced upon me, and I believe this letter does just that.
A message to all GLBTI youth who suffer from religious persecution at the hand of their families: You are not alone. You do not have to give your family the power to decide if you are happy or successful. Live your life as you are meant to. Seek out people who are like minded and will accept and love you as you deserve.
Hi Dad
I’ve been struggling with how to word this letter for a
while now. I guess your text message a few weeks ago struck a chord with me and
I decided then it was time to send you a letter. Initially it was to let you
know how I was going – then, as I thought about it more, it occurred to me that
this letter needed to do much more than that.
To begin with, all is well. I’m very happy with how my life
is and the career I have. I’ve forged myself a little place as a commissioning
editor, and next week the very first book I acquired will
be published and available from bookstores everywhere. I’m proud of my
achievements and I love my work. I’m respected for my talents and have been
given some wonderful opportunities by colleagues who have great faith in me.
Additionally, I have surrounding me the most amazing group
of friends and support network. People who have stood by me and respect me. I
consider that group to be family now. They accept me for who I am, but more than
that, they LOVE me for who I am. I also have a loving boyfriend named Murray –
who I’ve been with for three years now. At the end of the year he and I plan on
a trip to New York for a week – and I am ecstatic that I found Murray and that
I have him in my life.
I hope that you and the rest of my immediate family are
well, and I do hope that your lives are as fulfilling as mine is proving to be.
I would like to finish this letter with a request:
As a homosexual atheist man, I know that your beliefs exclude
me from your life. You are, under the confines of your religion, unable to make
regular contact with me and are not allowed to share in my life as I am not a
Jehovah’s Witness. I respect that you are entitled to your religion and the
beliefs that go along with that. I also understand that you believe that your
relationship with God depends upon the stance you take with those who are
either disassociated (like me) or those who are disfellowshipped.
It is with this in mind that I would like to ask you not to
contact me until your beliefs change. You are entitled to worship God how you
see fit, however this has led to my family being unable to make contact with
me, bar the sparest of contact from you. I have decided that as long as my
family are not interested in and do not partake in my life, I do not want to
know what is happening in theirs.
I am not attempting to be cruel, I have simply come to the
conclusion that this past 6 years have been the best of my life. During that
period if I had remained a Jehovah’s Witness, I would have committed suicide.
That is what you, and the rest of my family, would have wanted for me - to
refuse my homosexuality and doubts and to continue to be a Jehovah’s Witness,
and to face the incredibly debilitating consequences of living a life that was
a lie.
I will not be returning to your religious organisation. I do
not wish to receive material from you about your beliefs. I do not want to
receive updates about my siblings and their religious accomplishments and I do
not want to know why you think my ways are wrong.
Until your conscience allows you to accept me as the person
that I am with the beliefs that I have, I do not want to hear from you, or for
that matter, any of the family. Do not email. Do not write letters. Do not text
me. Do not call.
As far as I am concerned we will never be family until my
family can love me as the person I am without reservation or limitation.
With love,
Robert.
