this deserves its own post
Nov. 29th, 2010 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jessipsaloquiturOk, I'll warn y'all up front, if you are in possession of a heart, which I'm pretty sure y'all are, this will likely make you cry like a baby who just wants his mommy.
This "It Gets Better" video is from televangelist Oral Roberts' gay grandson. Yeah. I didn't know he had a gay grandson either. Apparently he had a gay son too. Ronald David Roberts committed suicide in 1982, just after coming out. This video is a letter to "Uncle Ronnie."
My uncle, Ronald David Roberts, was born in 1945, oldest son of the late televangelist, Oral Roberts, my grandfather.
My Uncle Ronnie, like me, was gay. He wrote in letters published after his death that he "came out" in high school, but only to close friends and family, including his father.
His father, Oral Roberts, was the first televangelist, and likely the most famous faith healer since Jesus Christ, with a world wide audience in the hundreds of millions.
He did not want a gay son.
Oral's anti-homosexual rants were so vehement that they can still be found on YouTube, 40 years later.
In his late thirties, 6 months after getting divorced and coming out, my Uncle Ronnie died on June 10th, 1982, by a self-inflicted gun-wound to the heart.
I am gay too. And my mother, like her father, does not want a gay son.
My mother made a point to tell me, only a year ago, at my grandfather's funeral, in front of 4,000 people, that hell does exist and I'm going there.
My uncle and I were both raised in a world dominated by evangelicals, who taught and still teach that the fires of hell await all gay men and women.
This is the evangelical "Christian" legacy for gays like my uncle and me: Threats. Bullying. Death.
But for me, and many others, the story doesn't end here.
Five years ago, when I was divorced and came out, I found myself, like my Uncle Ronnie, in Oklahoma, in my thirties, and terrified of losing my children because I was gay.
I was regularly called a faggot, both by strangers and by my ex-wife, and like my uncle before me, reached a point of despair.
Suicide by gay men and women in evangelical communities is still prevalent. Evangelicals may not be killing gays outright -- the police report my uncle killed himself.
However, while the evangelical community may not pull the trigger when one of their gay members commits suicide, they often provide the ammunition.
When I came out, I started writing a letter to my dead Uncle Ronnie; a letter meant for me, for my uncle, and for friends I have who are still closeted and terrified their family will reject them.
Even if they do, there's still hope.
It's going to be alright.
This is chapter one of my letter to Uncle Ronnie. It's painful, and sad, -- but, it gets better.
This "It Gets Better" video is from televangelist Oral Roberts' gay grandson. Yeah. I didn't know he had a gay grandson either. Apparently he had a gay son too. Ronald David Roberts committed suicide in 1982, just after coming out. This video is a letter to "Uncle Ronnie."
My uncle, Ronald David Roberts, was born in 1945, oldest son of the late televangelist, Oral Roberts, my grandfather.
My Uncle Ronnie, like me, was gay. He wrote in letters published after his death that he "came out" in high school, but only to close friends and family, including his father.
His father, Oral Roberts, was the first televangelist, and likely the most famous faith healer since Jesus Christ, with a world wide audience in the hundreds of millions.
He did not want a gay son.
Oral's anti-homosexual rants were so vehement that they can still be found on YouTube, 40 years later.
In his late thirties, 6 months after getting divorced and coming out, my Uncle Ronnie died on June 10th, 1982, by a self-inflicted gun-wound to the heart.
I am gay too. And my mother, like her father, does not want a gay son.
My mother made a point to tell me, only a year ago, at my grandfather's funeral, in front of 4,000 people, that hell does exist and I'm going there.
My uncle and I were both raised in a world dominated by evangelicals, who taught and still teach that the fires of hell await all gay men and women.
This is the evangelical "Christian" legacy for gays like my uncle and me: Threats. Bullying. Death.
But for me, and many others, the story doesn't end here.
Five years ago, when I was divorced and came out, I found myself, like my Uncle Ronnie, in Oklahoma, in my thirties, and terrified of losing my children because I was gay.
I was regularly called a faggot, both by strangers and by my ex-wife, and like my uncle before me, reached a point of despair.
Suicide by gay men and women in evangelical communities is still prevalent. Evangelicals may not be killing gays outright -- the police report my uncle killed himself.
However, while the evangelical community may not pull the trigger when one of their gay members commits suicide, they often provide the ammunition.
When I came out, I started writing a letter to my dead Uncle Ronnie; a letter meant for me, for my uncle, and for friends I have who are still closeted and terrified their family will reject them.
Even if they do, there's still hope.
It's going to be alright.
This is chapter one of my letter to Uncle Ronnie. It's painful, and sad, -- but, it gets better.
