Who does homosexuality hurt?

[DanaC]

I agree wit MTP on this one. As adults we are responsible for ourselves; our parents also share some responsibility for the person we are and the journey we're on. Maybe not legally, but morally.

And the idea that parents know what's best for their children is so bloody dependent upon the individual parents and the individual children it's almost not worth making the point in the first place. MTP had a right, as a struggling youngster, to have her needs taken into account.

To be put through all of that and then have the people who've put you through it turn round and deny the suffering you've been through must be horrible.

Parents make mistakes and so do children. Parents can often offer insight and wisdom by dint of their extended time on the planet. But they can also offer bad advice, damaging counsel and assist in trapping you into an unhappy life. having done so there is a moral weight on them. Having set you onto a destructive path and equipped you with the wrong tools for the world you're in, it is then a bit of a cheek to wash their hands of you when you've reached your majority and are trying to mend things.

I'm glad MTP managed to maintain a good relationship with her parents despite their travails. Clearly she is someone who is a) strong enough to forge her own path and b) understanding enough to recognise the lack of malice in her parents' actions.

If I were her, I would not tell them about my life. There are aspects of my life I have never told my father, because I know he wouldn't get it. Mum knows, because she does get it. Why tell Dad stuff that would give him a negative view of his daughter and possibly make him unhappy?

One of the very few things I regret in life, was telling Gran, in a flurry of teenage arrogance, that I was an atheist. All defiance and nihilistic zeal, I was determined to tear down the edifice of faith. All I actually did was hurt her. Her beliefs seemed (and still do) ludicrous and psychologically damaging to me. But for her, all she heard was that her adored grandchild was going to hell for eternity.