I’m a teen, closeted gay atheist who is constantly bombarded with degrading, awful ideas about people who are not Christian and who are GLBT. I can not out myself to my family because I am still dependent on them, but is there any way to tell my family member to stop with their remarks that will not out me? This particular family member considers every single question blasphemy, by the way.
Posted: October 4th 2009
Akusai www
Right now, as a teenager, you’re probably more or less stuck, barring Dave Hitt’s excellent advice before me.
Once you become socially and financially independent, however, you have loads of options.
The path of least resistance would probably be to simply cut ties with that family member. I’ve done that, and it’s not as bad as you might think.
You could try to convince them to change their opinions. I’d recommend against that on the grounds that it pretty much never works.
You could confront them head-on with no expectations of changing their opinions. This also might be rather destructive, and might lead to a cutting of ties, so it’s perhaps wiser to do away with the middleman here.
You could politely explain to them that you are gay and an atheist and let the chips fall where they may. This might be the fairest option to the family member, if you’re worried about that sort of thing.
Or, of course, you could continue to grin and bear it. This, in my opinion, is the worst option. Grinning and bearing such offensive BS is something adults should only have to do in professional situations, in my humble opinion, and sometimes not even there. Private life should be far more candid and refreshingly empty of such nonsense.
At the end of the day, you can’t let yourself be intimidated by people like this. As a homosexual and an atheist, you’re a member of two of the least-liked groups in America (assuming you live in America, which seems likely based on the extreme religiosity of your relative), and that situation will never change if you let folks intimidate you into silence.
Like I said, though, your hands are pretty tied until you’re on your own. Sorry I don’t have any advice for your current situation. Just think of it as something to look forward to.
Posted: October 12th 2009
Dave Hitt www
Keep it simple. The next time he goes off on one of his rants tell him, “That’s really hateful, and I don’t want to hear it.” Say this whenever he gets preachy about anyone, not just gays.
Posted: October 6th 2009
Eric_PK
The sad truth is that there is probably nothing you can do. People like that are not open to reasoned discussion and they don’t care about other people’s opinions and feelings.
My advice is to focus on your future – get through whatever schooling you can so you will have the freedom to not have to put up with it in the future.
Posted: October 5th 2009
Eshu www
If you cannot simply ignore these bigoted and unreasonable comments, you could throw the Bible at them.
As well as the hatred and nonsense, there is some nicer stuff in the Bible. The first thing which springs to mind is Matthew 7:1, “Judge not lest ye be judged”.
You could insist that hatred is not what Jesus taught and that to treat people like that only drives them away from Christianity.
Of course you could simply end up in a tedious biblical debate.
I hope that when you’re older and able to come out to them, that they’ll love you enough and you have a strong enough relationship with them that they will accept you. At that point, if your familial bonds with them are stronger than their hatred of homosexuality, maybe your admission will give them pause for thought. Maybe they’ll realise that GLBT people aren’t as bad as they’ve been told.
I’m sure it is hard to keep a good relationship with them in the face of what you’re experiencing, but maybe you could see it as humouring them and try to focus on the areas of life where you can get along.
I don’t blame you at all for staying in the closet for the time being, but your time will come.
Posted: October 5th 2009
SmartLX www
You’ve pretty much ruled out the usual channels of communication in your question, if you can’t even ask questions.
If you’re going to respond this person, you may have to force questions by saying something like, “I want to dispel these doubts I have, and I can’t just ignore them or they’ll get bigger.”
As an atheist, you’re confident that their reasons for hatred and persecution of GLBT have no grounding in reality. It’s a lot like saying, “Gays are evil because the gnomes said so.” If you decide not to rock the boat, keep this in mind and it may help the slings and arrows to sail over your head.
Whatever you decide, remember that when you grow up and become independent you can speak as freely as you currently think, and you will not speak as your family does. The cycle of hatred, which may have gone round your family for generations, breaks with you.
Posted: October 4th 2009