What I Believed
Gay was wrong.
Being black raised Christian in Dallas, Tx, I believed it to be true. Unbeknownst to me, there were people part of LGBTQ+ near me. Now I was never out right bigoted, I did give sneers whenever someone mentioned anything “gay”.
In all actuality, I was just pushing things off whenever someone called anything I did gay. I wasn’t the definition of black masculinity.
When I was 12, my mom wanted us to watch a Hallmark movie. It was “Prayers for Bobby”. This young man in a conservative, Christian household was gay. The all American family except for him. They tried to “fix” him but he found love. When he chose to share, he was ostracized and killed himself. The movie turns and the mother learned.
While my brother and mother felt sympathy, they didn’t feel empathy. I did. With my depression, I couldn’t wrap my head around someone being rejected by their family for how they were. That movie hit home for me.
A few years later, my cousin came out of the closet. Of course, our little church got a hold of it and said the meanest shit. I was seeing the movie play out again. I told her I loved her and that it didn’t matter. She was my cousin all the same. Now, I speak up whenever I can. Not just family but with others when something homophobic is uttered.
Accepting someone else because they’re different may seem like a foreign concept but people must realize writing someone off for being different is stupid. Race/love isn’t a choice. Never stay silent. Combat bigotry.