Coming Out Stories

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My wife and I are parents of three daughters, Terry, Kimberly, and Kristen. And Kristen is a lesbian. I've told this story many times, always resolving not to break into tears—but I have failed every time. I assume I will fail now, but if the tears come, they are tears of joy and pride.

I came home one evening late. It was the second or third day of January. Our daughters had been home for Christmas, and Kristen was still with us. Being the youngest, she was in college, and would be returning to Grinnell College in Iowa in a few days. I came home late at night from a meeting at school. No one was on the first floor, and so I walked upstairs to the bedroom where Kristen and Nancy were on the bed, both of them sobbing. Nancy could not talk, and Kristen said, "I just told Mom I'm lesbian."

The interesting thing is that on this issue our credentials were impeccable. We had always been open and public about our acceptance of homosexuality as a natural and normal and potentially healthy lifestyle—just as heterosexuality is a potentially healthy lifestyle. My father was an evangelical minister in the Church of God. At home I had never heard a negative thing about "queers," except that that was the term used for homosexuals. When I was raised the words gay and lesbian weren't in the public domain. Though the term was used, and homosexuals were thought to be a bit odd, they were nothing other than that—certainly no suggestion that they couldn't be Christians.

In fact, one of the friends of my parents was a Church of God minister, known to be homosexual, and loved because he loved his congregation. My wife, a nurse, was a person who was always out there in front on every social issue, including sexuality. She told our daughters when they were 12 or 13 about safe sex. I was horrified! At the time that Kristen came out to us our closest friends were a lesbian couple—Kathy and Ginger. We went places with them, we had them in our home, we went to their home. And there Nancy was in uncontrollable tears because our daughter was a lesbian.

I didn't survive tearless very long either, and we began talking. We said some rational things, and some utterly irrational things. First we said, "We love you. You will always be our daughter." Then we said, "Are you sure?" We said, "Think of the future dangers." And we said, "Would you try again?" To this day we don't understand everything, although Kathy and Ginger, our lesbian friends, helped more than anyone else to think through things—more than anyone else except Kristen herself.

During that evening Kristen said to us, "I know it's difficult; it was difficult for me. I know you're afraid; I'm afraid. I know you're shocked; I was shocked." And the most important thing she said was, "Mom, Dad, I am still the same person I was one hour ago, one day ago, one year ago. I love you, and I know you love me."

Coming out is a difficult process for parents too. The reasons it is difficult are not entirely rational—they have to do with confronting the unexpected. Here was our youngest daughter who we felt like we knew intimately, who was really the easiest child, who was always there for us, and who one day walked into our lives and said, "I'm a Republican." (Apologies to the Republicans in the audience.) She said she was something that we totally had not thought she was—even though the moment she said it we began to think back and say increasingly, "Well of course, of course." As she herself did also.

The most important thing she said to us is "I am still the same person."

I appreciated what Mary said at the outset. I hope there is a time when coming out is not a special occasion but an everyday occasion. When people come out as gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual, queer, heterosexual, and who are incorporated with love into a loving community. Right now our mission is to affirm coming out. But our longer-term mission is to affirm and seek the time when this kind of event is no longer necessary. In that process we are all engaged in a task of, for our churches and our society, coming out.

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