Here’s a positive twist on an all-too-familiar story. A young man on Reddit recently shared what happened to him after he put a rainbow flag outside his house, and it’s probably not what you expect.
The 23-year-old bisexual man lives with his parents in what he calls “a somewhat conservative northeast U.S. town. … with a lot of older, conservative, white folk.”
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“Our home is right next to a church, and directly across the street from their Catholic grade school,” he writes. “I went to that church my whole life, and my family still has many friends there, and is close with priests, nuns, and teachers that still work there.”
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Despite having a boyfriend of six years, the young man says he’s never been able to come out to his conservative parents… Until Donald Trump was elected president.
After the election, the young man felt compelled to take a stand against bigotry. So he purchased a rainbow flag online.
“I didn’t ask anyone. I just ordered the flag and got some hooks and mounted it to hang right off of our porch, attached to my lifelong home,” he says. “I was terrified waiting for it to arrive, and even more so just waiting for my family to get home the day I hung it.”
To his surprise, his family was fine with it.
“Nobody said anything,” he writes. “At one point, my mom asked where I got it. I told her I’d bought it online and that I knew there was at least one kid who gets off the bus at school across the street every day, who needs to know that they have support somewhere.”
But it gets better. Because a few days later his mom gave him note someone had left in the mailbox. It read:
Dear fellow,
As I passed your home today I saw your flag and it lifted the pall that has been over me and my family since the election. I know it is weird for a stranger to drop you a note for a home adornment, but you should know that your sign of acceptance of diversity and sign that that there are people close by who feel differently than our future leaders do, gave me hope for our town, for what I try to teach my kids and hopefully for our country.
Thank you, so much.
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“I know this seems so melodramatic, but I’m 23, living at home after college, still closeted to my family, and feeling more and more uncomfortable in my home town,” the young man writes. “This letter meant so much to me, even though it doesn’t even say much of anything. I wish I could tell them how often it makes me smile still, days after reading it.”
GayEGO
My lifetime partner of 54 years, married 12 years are both retired and living the American dream. I told my family who lives in Idaho and Texas that I am gay, in 1991 when I was 50 years old. Prior to that, I introduced my partner as my roommate back in 1962 when I was in the Navy. Nothing changed, and we have many friends, single and married, gay and straight, many attended our 50th Anniversary celebration dinner. This guy and his partner needs to live a full life and should come out to his family.