James: How Not to Write a Letter of Parental Disapproval

Mytheos Holt shares a photographed example of the letter not to write to a son who declares himself homosexual:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/a-difficult-but-necessary-letter-shocking-letter-from-a-father-disowning-his-gay-son-goes-viral/

Why do we need to see the letter? One reason: because those of us who know older (perhaps now dead), conservative men may need to see the handwriting, and the name "James," just to be sure that it's not a letter some friend of ours might have written.

Another reason: because this terse, cold letter reads like an expression of shock that was probably penned thirty years ago. By now some fathers who may have said or written this kind of thing might want to write more compassionate letters to their sons.

The letter to "James" is not a letter I've ever wanted to write to, say, the stepson I've never met. Maybe most letters of this kind would not be suitable for publication because they wouldn't be so generic.

Maybe it will help someone out there, maybe even him, if I share a letter I might have written to my stepson if I'd ever had his address:

"Ken: Your choice to practice homosexuality was a blow to your adoptive father, but it couldn't possibly have hurt him as much as your choice to disappear did. He probably said things that reflected his misunderstanding of you, and your misunderstanding of yourself, when you were a teenager. He probably said that he found the idea of anal intercourse disgusting, as most people do. So you tried it, you liked it, and I don't know what else was going on in your life at the time but I know what was going on in the neighborhood where you were, and you chose to disappear.

"I have reasons to believe you've left the United States; you weren't born here and were legally adopted by a relative in order to allow you to live here, should you choose. In the United States you are presumed dead, because you never turned up to claim the six-figure savings account that had your original legal name on it. Your father and I wanted you to inherit more even than that. Your name was what your father's abusive ex-wife used to get away with the money.

"If you are back in the country where you were born, among people who are actually closer relatives, you'll probably find it easier to deal with her than your father and I did. Words may be what you need. So here are the words.

"Your adoptive father loved you. He may have pushed you to 'toughen up' and go out for sports, because he had had to 'toughen up' to relate to other men too. He wanted you to work hard, study hard, be 'R.A.' or 'prefect' at school, because that would help you overcome prejudice against large dark-skinned immigrant men, of whom you were one. Yes, he was proud that you were doing a man's job at fifteen. Yes, that was partly because he hadn't even just accidentally produced you, but had chosen you as a son. You've probably noticed by now that there's a mixture of selfish and altruistic feeling in just about everything we human beings do. Your father thought a great deal of you and cared deeply about your well-being.

"Your adoptive father was ill for exactly six months before he died. He was conscious for most of that time, and the one thing he wanted was to be reconciled with you. So what else could I want for him, or for you?

"Yes, I think anal intercourse is an abomination because it can spread diseases. Yes, the same thing can be said for eating crabmeat. If you or any crab-cracking Marylander want to study those topics in the Bible, we can study them. If not, I'm no more interested in whom you sleep with than I am in whether you eat crabmeat. You're an adult; in fact you're too old to be my son. Your moral choices are between you and God. I lived with the crab eaters, I could probably have lived with you.

"You and I now have exactly two things in common: we've lost the same man, and we'll probably always avoid the same town in Maryland. You probably don't want to meet me. If I wanted to meet you, it would be out of curiosity. However, your adoptive father and I were in agreement about his estate. The money and the high-rent property were for you--because your father was afraid you'd become ill and require expensive treatments. The house where we lived was for me. I'm not saying I wouldn't have taken the money, but I respected your father's intention to leave it to you. And if you had made contact with your father while he was alive, you should know that any call, letter, or visit from you would always have been welcome.

"We always cynically said 'Oh, at that age kids only write to their parents when they want money.' Your adoptive father would have sent you money. He was your mother's blood relative, not her husband, but he loved her and you.

"If these thoughts help you in any way, stepson, I wish you the best of luck."