If anyone was offended by my post a few days ago, I apologize.

I have said on multiple occasions that I have no problems with the sexual orientation of people and I still mean it. On more than one occasion in "real life" I have said that I have a number of gay friends, and when I say this, I'm talking about you guys.

By the way, I did figure out what was bothering me. Sometimes things bother you and they come out in other ways. I have a continuing concern that my son is placing his computer gaming ahead of his studies, which means that he is sacrificing long term future for short term pleasures. We're trying to work on that.

I guess that I should really give up on trying to get any of you to understand what it means to be a parent. Being a parent means that you worry about your kids and the directions that they are taking with your life. It is unfortunate that many of you will never get to experience this in all its heights and depths.

I don't know why I always wanted to adapt a kids from somewhere, maybe africa or india or bangledesh or iran, yes of course being a father or mother was not quite easy at all, you have to spend lots of timing, spirit, soul, money, strength, energy to cultivate your children, I will totally mad and upset if my children weren't listen to me and doing all of the things against me, so it's kinda poor sometimes (in my imagine)

besides benig a father or mother also is a big responbility or or big challenge, you got to be very patience, I don't know if my son or daughters being gay somedays, I guess I don't mind, it's their life, they got a right to choose what path they should be walk or should not walk, certainly I'm only a life-excutive-concultant, they will know who am I and they're konw once I taught them philosophy, if there were being gay I will face the fact ( that I cannot change) if I was going to change them to straight, it means hurt, everyone just want to be happy sometimes, nobody's fault, something can not really change that I got to know

my mother she knows that I'm gay but she know my sister is lesbiean too but what should can do? she can solely accept, she talked to me: it's your life now, I don't bother your life, you're grown -up, you deserve have your own life"

nobody's fault, take it easy

I wanted to be adapt a kid but I didn't marry to my lover so I can't get any kids aboard

A lot of people had a problem with this paragraph. What you happened to overlook was a syllogism (basic proof in logic theory).

Here's how it goes:

You don't know how it feels to be a parent. <- You were upset by this.

Tramp is a parent

<<<therefore>>>

You don't know how tramp feels to be a parent.

( Let's make this very blunt by stating it in the first person. )

You don't know how I feel.

----------------------------------------------

Oh, on the original point, the sexual orientation of my son hasn't particularly manifested itself in any kind of clearly discernible sense. In other words, I don't know if he's straight or gay.

Let me tell you what you doing in an analogy:

You see a couple.

They tell you the following: "We just found out that we're pregnant. We're hoping for a boy."

What you have done is slapped them and told them that they're sexist.

--------------------------

Until any attribute of my son is well known, I can hope all day long for attributes that will lead to an easier and better life for my son. Once it becomes well known, it is my duty as a parent to be supportive of my son.

One of my daughter's friends tried to convince her that she was either bisexual or gay. She's straight.

i have a problem with that paragraph because you seem to assume that parenthood is an impossibility for gay people. you know i can get a girl pregnant and shit like that. i can adopt. it's not that hard. i guess, you didn't mean that to come across in the paragraph.

What the hell does that have to do with anything?
You know, I wasn't even going to bother to respond to all this-frankly, I'm really sick of it.
Of course I "don't know how you feel as a parent"-nobody knows how somebody else truly feels. But after the way you've treated the feelings of some of us around here, I don't honestly think I really care to know how you feel.
All I really think is that you made a comment that maybe exposed you aren't as tolerant as maybe you like to think you are-I got upset & made a comment back. You didn't like it.
Jon-I really do feel sorry that all this has come to this-when I first met you, I thought you seemed like a really cool guy & I was looking forward to our friendship. I just honestly don't know how I feel now.

Happy Holidays!

^Regarding my above post.
I posted that pretty much in the heat of anger, which I never really like to do. The comment about your daughter's friend brings up that whole "Gays Recruit" argument & I just HATE that worse than you can understand, Jon.
You seem to really be singing the "if you could stand in my shoes" tune, but I just honestly wish you would have taken a moment to understand what type of shoes your friends on this forum walk in.
Jon, it's really, really apparent to me that we are two very different people.
I'm not going to comment any further on this matter-it's just making me too upset & that is not the point of this forum.
We have to co-exist on this forum & I think we can just keep a polite distance for the time being-it's what I plan to do.
Thanks,
Katefan4

I'm gonna have a kid.

That's gonna hurt!

I know-I've seen your stretch marks...

ghahahhaha cherub
hahahahahahhahahhhahahahahahahahahhaah
oh man, that was funny
hahahahahahahlol
not to be all crazy but cherub, you're so cuuuuuuuute
::pinches your cheeks:

because you are one of them
you are gay
you are gay
you are a homosexual
the opposite of straight, youre gay
i know it
your family knows it
dogs know it
everybody seems to know it except you!

Until I realized that it was on the kids in the hall soundtrack, I had no fucking clue what that was about!

I think that I finally figured all of this out. I had to shift points-of-view a number of times to figure out the problem.

KF4's perspective

KF4 might have thought originally what I was saying was "My son is gay, I wish that he weren't gay." That is a fairly despicable thing to say (but I didn't say that).

KF4 might have thought what I was saying was "I don't really know if my son is gay, but I hope that he's not gay, because that would be really hard on me, or bad for me." The implication of the statement is that the hope that my son isn't gay is dependent on what it means to me. How it impacts me. (It might have sounded like this was my perspective, but it wasn't).

CC's perspective

In the original quick note, I was getting frustrated because y'all weren't getting the parenting thing. It's actually more than that. This was the thing that I was really slow on picking up. I guess the thing that was missing was how making sacrifices for your kids changes you. (more on the sacrificing thing later on).

I was really frustrated because you hadn't yet had that "Duh!" realization that what I was saying was "Duh!" obvious.

tramp's background

My kids come first. Period. My wife and I have given up stuff for the benefit of our kids. Many times, we do what's good for the kids ahead of what's good for us.

So let me restate the problem.

I live in a red state. Red, as in redneck. Very red. Very intolerant. If I could find a good paying job in a blue state (preferable a blue state where real estate values are not completely outrageous), I'd move.

Gays are discriminated down here. They're both hated and feared (I wish this weren't the case, but that's the reality of a southern state).

When I say that I wish that he weren't gay, what I am saying is that I wish that he would NOT be in a position to be discriminated against, or hated, or feared. Because that would be hard for him to go through. Because it is not easy being mistreated I don't want him to go through it. I wouldn't wish for him to be a paraplegic or have learning disabilities or him to have attributes that make it harder for him to succeed.

The key here is perspective. I'm not saying this primarily due to the impact on me personally. My kid comes first.. I am viewing this totally from his perspective. This is why I have been hammering about the parenting thing and have been totally frustrated because y'all weren't getting it. If you believe that I am choosing primarily on what's good for me, then the statement that I made sounds terrible. It sounds like I'm bashing gays and I'm a selfish lout.

Actually, I just don't wish for my son to be in a position to be discriminated against, or hated, or misunderstood. Being gay can be a really hard thing, especially down here.

I thought about this awhile. You know, I really don't any of you to be discriminated against, or hated, or misunderstood. I'm not sure that I would wish that on anyone.

So, let me flip this around to you. Do you want my son to be discriminated against? Hated? Feared? Misunderstood?

I had a real problem with all of this because I thought that all of this sounded really wrong after I first uttered it. Logically, I knew what I said made sense, but it just seemed like it was bigoted, prejudiced.

I ultimately made peace with myself, because I was more concerned with what was better for my son. I will admit that after my aunt's funeral, I started thinking about my family line and my sense of obligation to the family line.

On a postscript basis, I finally had a talk with my son. He says that he's not gay. He does have some gay friends up at his school and he says that they're totally cool. I'm glad that he's got friends like that.

He did look at me somewhat strange as we had this long discussion. He saw that the whole thing was a theoretical construct of how his life would probably play out down here.

Again, if I had my way, gays would be able to marry if they wanted to. They would be able to adopt kids if they wanted to. I would also want for some of the ugly things that I've heard about happening to gays not happen (I won't mention the details, it's not important).

I'm really sorry that I wasn't quicker on the uptake of figuring all of this out.

I'm sorry that the statement was upsetting. It did bother a part of me, because it seemed really disrespectful and I do really care what you guys think.

Let me also say that if I found out that my son was gay, then we would be supportive and try to do what we could to make it easier for him. Probably move out of Texas a lot sooner.

I am also sorry that I got frustrated and angry because you seemed to be missing what I was trying to say. Making sacrifices for your children is something that you'll never quite appreciate until you've done it. Perhaps, your parents never made sacrifices for you. Perhaps they did, and you didn't recognize it when they did. Perhaps you didn't think about that.

I don't know and I don't care. Like I said, I had a lot of problems with all of this until I (at least I think I figured out your perspective) I figured out your perspective.

I also think that you tried to read too much into my statement, and then I kept responding the wrong way and making it all worse.

I will also say that all of this has been really hard on me. My digestion has gotten out of whack and I've been really upset off and on. I also have been avoiding this forum.

I also know this has been hard on you too. I'm sorry.

I want this to be over with and to get past it.

I am really bad at arguing my point. I don't like it. I never have. I guess that if you, too, had been beaten as a child as I would, you would be able to appreciate how much I just want to shut down when I have to deal with confrontation.

--

By the way, I never indicated who used the breeders term. I did not wish to imply that it was KF4, because it most certainly was not KF4. I didn't identify the person because I feel sorry for the guy. I separate the action from the person. I wish for people to not use disrespectful terms, but I try to forgive the individual.

The trick to all of this is the double perspective jump.

If you can assume my perspective assuming my son's perspective, you'll get it.

It's hard, because I had to assume KF4's perspective assuming my perspective and just stopping there to see the problem.

^Jon,
I am not avoiding commenting, but I am a very slow reader lately & this was a very long post & it just takes me long time to read.
I do really appreciate you being honest & at least trying tu understand where I was coming from.
I'm sorry you have been feeling bad-it has rattled me, too-but let's just agree to it being water under the bridge & time to move on.
Thanks, Jon,
KF4
And I do appreciate you saying that about the "breeders" comment-I have never used that term for anyone other than Kim Deal. I just don't want people thinking I would say that.