Dear Milo,
I watched, and thoroughly enjoyed, your interview with Michael Voris, last week. Good job! Once again I was impressed with your ability to think on your feet, to retain a truckload of specific data and be able to draw from it on the spot, and to make connections between sometimes seemingly disparate ideas or realities.
I’ve enjoyed your work for several years, now, perhaps because of your complexity and your courage in facing your self-contradictions. I don’t always reach the same conclusion you do, but I always feel instructed, invigorated, and really impressed by you — in a very positive way.
Now, in the last few minutes of the Voris interview, the conversation became very personal. I was deeply moved by your willingness to “go there,” to be transparent about the contradiction between how you live and what you believe — and demonstrate such a deep understanding of!
I don’t expect you to be familiar with my work but for eleven and a half years I was married to a man who is now, and has been for more than 30 years, in the gay lifestyle. I’ve watched my children used as ammunition, and emotionally and spiritually warped in power plays, and since you brought up being a “stepdad” now, this is what I want to broach with you. As I’m 61 years old, and you are younger than my children, I trust you will forgive the “maternal” tone:
As a stepdad, what are you doing to help foster a sense of respect and appreciation of your “stepchild/ren’s” mother? It’s up to you to do that. It’s up to you to see to it that their dad models for them appreciation and respect for their mother. Don’t cheat her out of that. And don’t make loyalty to you and the gay cause a condition for approving of them. Let them love their mother; encourage it and foster it.
Further, what are you doing to foster in him/them a level of comfort and ease with people of the same and the opposite sex? Kids raised with gay parents have the deck stacked against them, in terms of self-identity and -understanding. You’ll have to make an effort at this, I don’t think it will come automatically, but you need to be sure the kids witness you in friendships with straight men and women, not just with other members of the gay community. This is absolutely essential for them to have even a chance to grow up to be emotionally whole.
Okay, that’s it for now. I’ll step off my soapbox and give it a rest. Take care, Milo — and know you have a friend here who is praying for you regularly and would always welcome you for a cup of coffee or dinner, if you’re ever in my neck of the woods.
God bless you!
Laura
Surviving The Rainbow 