I came out to my parents a little over two years ago. My parents, religious to the extreme of subscribing to Creationist doctrine, did not receive the news in a very gracious manner. Initially they thought I was joking because I do not appear gay, in that I do not act in the stereotypical manner a gay man ought to. In their eyes I didn’t act like a faggot, therefore I must not be gay. Day after day, jokes and sarcasm involving my sexual preferences began to pile up. In those days I watched as my loved ones—whose lives were guided by loving hearts—hint that this love could only be directed to a narrow scope of humanity. God motivated my parents to love and respect their fellow human, and yet I watched as those feelings towards me seemed to vanish.

When I had my fill of crude comments and hurtful remarks, I sat my parents down to clear the air. I had a frank discussion with them about the jokes they had been making and assured them I was serious. I was—and remain—a gay man. Despite what my behavior suggests (“you act so straight!” they argued), I prefer the company of men to woman. A real problem in the gay community involves labeling oneself as “straight acting.” If you are straight acting, your actions involve having relations with women. No gay male is straight acting, except closeted ones under the façade of a heterosexual relationship. Perpetuating this misconception within our own community allows for people outside the community to harbor and promulgate this misinformation further.

My second coming out took. My parents knew I was being serious; several times during this conversation I got choked up as my conviction guided my words. After pouring my heart out, a tense silence surrounded the table. I could tell they were processing the news, searching for the right response. They didn’t quite find it. “Okay. We should probably schedule a physical for you, just to be sure,” My mom responded. Befuddled and angry, I got up and walked away from the table lest I say something out of anger I may thereafter regret. My sister—who had been very supportive since my first coming out­­—asked “is there anyone stupider than you on the entire planet?” Disgusted at my mother’s remark, she came to calm me down. She brought me back to the table and the conversation continued. It got progressively better. At the end my dad said “well, you’re going to have to start dressing better.” We laughed. The notion that gay men must dress impeccably aside, his attempt at humor seemed to come from a very compassionate place.

As I said earlier, my parents are normally warm and loving people (not to each other, they are divorced and hate each other a little bit). While they grow more and more accepting of my lifestyle as time goes by, this major life event gave me a glimpse of what lies beneath a seemingly honorable veneer. At the time, I genuinely believed that the veneer of godliness shielded human beings who harbored great contempt for their fellow man. As time goes by I am beginning to believe that this is not the case. They are not hideous people masquerading as good Christians to be welcomed into God’s kingdom in the afterlife. I believe they are genuinely good people; they have years and years of evidence stacked up in their favor. So what, then, brought out the insensitive, cruel people I met two years ago?

The more and more I play back events from that week in my mind, I get closer and closer to an explanation. These memories are vivid, and have been etched into my memory with the same vigor of my earliest life traumas. Pooping in my pants during fourth grade math class is a great example: the faces on my friends and classmates as they had realized what I had done will follow me to my grave, if senility doesn’t take them first. What I saw in my classmates’ eyes that day comes from the same place that fueled my parents’ reaction to my fabulous news. I know because I saw similar looks as I saw my parents joke, offend, and grapple with the realization that I am, in fact, a gay man. Those looks come from fear. Those looks come from pity. Looks of disgust given when a peer poos themselves are profoundly connected to looks of fear given when you realize someone you love is gay. Profound for involving poop, that is.

Let me clarify this. Place yourself in the shoes of a fourth grader. The smell has already invaded your comfort zone and has no signs of relenting. You realize that someone has pooped. What kind of person poops in math class in the fourth grade? Who could the culprit be? It better not be one of your friends! What will the rest of the class think? I can’t really associate myself with someone who poops themselves. It’s social suicide. When we go to the playground, imagine all of the stares from the other kids!

So maybe the looks actually came from how bad it smelled, but you get the point. Also, don’t worry: I was a clever fourth grader and bounced back when I was able to joke afterwards that “fractions actually bored the shit out of me!” I was an edgy fourth grader. You may be able to see where I’m going with this comparison, though. Thinking of a reality where their son was gay, their mind immediately raced to their position in the Church community to which they belonged. Being gay, after all, is a sin. Their church did not condone homosexuality or the actions it begot, so how it could it condone my family’s acceptance of it?

It’s rational to oppose homosexuality if it goes against your religious dogma. Religious beliefs comprise a fundamental component of who a person is. (Note: I’m saying it is rational, not that it is acceptable.) My parents belonged to a community that subscribed to beliefs that, in this new fabulous light, could potentially make them social pariahs. It’s the church equivalent of pooping your pants in the fourth grade. Social suicide. What does a person do if a community—to which belonging is a fundamental attribute of your personal identity—abandons you? Who do you become? These were the thoughts that swirled around in my parent’s heads during that week.

They feared for themselves, but they feared even more for me. In my mother’s eyes, I was choosing to walk down a path that would make my life extremely difficult. She didn’t want to picture a world where her son faced such rampant bigotry. As difficult as my life would be, it pales in comparison to the fire and brimstone that awaited me in my afterlife. Gays go to hell, because homosexual acts are sinful. Sinners go to hell; a lifetime full of Catholic school will tell you this. Again, it’s rational for this to cross your mind as an avid churchgoer.

Existing inside such a bubble makes it difficult to consider life outside of this bubble; the perspective just isn’t there. My parents had a very specific view on homosexuality and the lifestyle it begot, and the ramifications for being wooed into such a lifestyle were dire. Before I came out, my parents saw homosexuals as faceless sinners and could not comprehend why people would engage in such blatant sin.

At my second coming out, I gave my parents a face to plaster all over the demographic: their son, who repeatedly made Dean’s list at a prestigious Catholic university. Growing up, I was a hardworking and goodhearted boy; was all of this to change at the utterances of three small words? Placing me into their mistaken paradigm of the gay lifestyle scared the shit out of them. Not only would life be filled with trials due to how different I would be, but I was destined for hell. What my mother failed to realize, however, is that hell could be a place on Earth. It comes from the absolute loneliness a person feels when they can’t reveal who they truly are to anyone they share their lives with.

People guided by their religious doctrine to detest homosexuality are not evil people, they are just woefully misinformed. Existing in such an isolated bubble with homogenous beliefs creates a groupthink mentality that is difficult to overcome unless the out-group is given a face. More and more religious groups are becoming LGBT friendly as more and more people feel comfortable about coming out in today’s welcoming society. Some bubbles, guided by a gust of courageous families willing to recognize the dissonance in church preaching about homosexuality and what they see in the people around them, have popped. The movement has started, and the LGBT community must facilitate these relations just as much as members of such bubbles. We need to provide faces to the movement in order to reveal the humanity we all share.

Good people, guided by suspect religious groupthink, may stumble through this process; my parents certainly did. Patience is paramount, but the more and more a person is able to recognize a person for who they are and not which group they may belong to, the light finds its way through.