Straight Parents, Gay Children: Inspiring Families to Live Honestly and with Greater Understanding - Softcover

Bernstein; Bernstein, Robert A.

3.75

53 ratings by Goodreads

9781560252290: Straight Parents, Gay Children: Inspiring Families to Live Honestly and with Greater Understanding

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560252294 ISBN 13: 9781560252290

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 1999

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The author is the former national vice president of P-FLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and this is his personal account of a father who came to terms with his daughter's homosexuality.

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Review:

The courageous and levelheaded Straight Parents, Gay Children, Armistead Maupin comments, "shows the parents of gay children how to stop merely tolerating their kids and start being their heroes." Robert A. Bernstein made this essential move to "heroism" himself after his daughter Bobbi came out to him and her stepmother in the mid-1980s, when she was 19. Soon after, they attended a meeting of P-FLAG (Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays) at a nearby church, and Bernstein realized that he had joined a small but powerful group of people unable to support the continued oppression of their gay loved ones. Bernstein brings together stirring quotes (even from such unlikely sources as the late Senator Barry Goldwater) and inspiring stories, like those of Jane Spahr, the first openly gay minister to be called as a pastor of the Presbyterian church (and later denied the post) and of Dr. Roscoe Thorne, a former lumberjack and weightlifter who spoke to a packed room at a military hearing set up to discharge his son from the navy despite his brilliant career as a "Top Gun" pilot. A useful book for therapists, clergy, and educators, and an essential resource for parents of gay and bisexual children. --Regina Marler

From the Back Cover:

This is a personal account by a father who came to terms with his daughter's homosexuality and discovered that his life was not diminished, as he had originally thought, but enriched by it. In Straight Parents / Gay Children, Robert Bernstein tells about his own and others' experiences with P FLAG, an organization that helps parents to achieve a fuller understanding and appreciation of human diversity. Bernstein's inspiring account serves as a call to action to all parents of gays not just to love and accept their children, but to speak out on their behalf. It includes sketches of a number of courageous P FLAG members who have taken the lead in seeking social equality and justice for their gay loved ones.

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