Coming out to a family is a hard thing to do, but when a gay person does it and their parents stand by their side, it is a beautiful thing. After all, that's typically who we expect to have "trouble" from.
One dad shared, however, that when his son came out, it wasn't him or his wife that had any issues. Instead, it was his now estranged daughter.
"My son Jake is gay, he came out when he was 18 and me and my wife couldn't have been more proud of him," exclaims the dad in his Reddit post.
The father went on to explain that his son and older daughter are well into their 30s and they've been a happy family until about six months ago when his daughter Lucy converted to Catholicism. He also noted that no one in their little family had ever really been particularly religious.
Once Lucy became Catholic, however, things in their family dynamic began to change.
"Since then Lucy became more distant with her Jake, and I started to notice Jake looking less jolly than his normal self," the dad wrote.
"I decided to ask him about it, because I could sense something was wrong. At first he denied something was up, so I kept asking him what what was wrong until he finally broke down in tears one day. He told me that a few months back Lucy had called him to meet up."
His son said that when they met up, Lucy tried to "talk" to him about his sexuality.
"According to my son, she literally begged him to repent and give up his 'homosexual lifestyle,' by breaking up with his boyfriend of two years," he wrote. "Since then she constantly rings him and texts him begging him to repent his sin, and has even messaged his boyfriend directly to 'try and save him from hell too.' — I was livid."
"Me and my wife immediately called Lucy and demanded a 'family meeting,'" the dad writes.
"We all sat round the table (me, my wife, Jake and Lucy), and we asked her about it. She literally said in front of us all 'Jake, I want you to go to Heaven, you've got to stop this, it's not natural.' My wife burst into tears and I started to literally shake in rage," he wrote.
"After a lot of screaming and crying from everyone, my wife and I eventually said something along the lines of: 'You can believe what you want, but if you dare to say anything even remotely related to Jake's life choices ever again, you will not be a part of this family.' Her response was to look Jake in the eyes and say 'can you not see what your doing is wrong, it's a violation, it's sick.'"
That was the final straw for the dad and his wife.
"After throwing her out of the house and telling her we would never speak to her again, we got on the phone and decided to amend our will," he wrote. "She now gets absolutely nothing. She arrived at our house begging to let her into our lives again, and saying not only are we letting Jake down but we are not respecting her religious beliefs."
So the dad wanted to know, was he wrong for totally cutting her off?
A lot of people said they didn't blame the dad one bit for his actions.
"How ironic that she is angry you aren't respecting her beliefs and yet she feels no responsibility for respecting the beliefs of the rest of you," one user wrote.
Others thought the dad was right, but implored him to have more empathy.
"She really can't get what you're trying to tell her," one person wrote. "It's OK to have your own beliefs but you should not impose them on others. What you did was harsh, but I can see where you are coming from. She needs something like this to wake her up that she shouldn't judge others. But, you should not give up faith in your daughter. She may eventually come to her senses after she has seen the problems she has caused and you should be willing to accept her back if she has a sincere apology."
The dad updated and said that he would absolutely consider forgiveness if they could come to an understanding.
"The main thing we all want to do is to put this behind us," the dad wrote. "For the people who have suggested family therapy, we are taking that into consideration (obviously with the current situation in the world, our options are limited, but we will see what we can do)."
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