The following is a coming out letter from Stephen Blakley:

"I am a homosexual. I am not sick, nor deviate, nor mentally ill. My sexuality simply expresses itself in attraction for other men rather than women. Neither is it unnatural. I am not attracted to children, nor pain, nor heterosexual men. For me it is completely natural and right and good.

"If your morality would condemn me, first consider these things: I did not choose to be homosexual, but I found myself one and have accepted it, happily, as an integral part of my personality; the morality that could condemn me for something over which I have no control must itself be without humaneness, akin to the consciousness which gassed Jews and massacred Indians; homosexuals in this country and others have for centuries been forced to lead secretive lives, in constant fear that their careers would be destroyed and the relationships with their loved ones cut off by hate and disgust.

"I refuse to hate myself and I refuse to allow anyone who wishes to have continued personal contact with me to hate this essential part of my self either. I also refuse to live in the half-world of gay ghettoes, where furtive sexual liaisons pass for love and self-revulsion and secretiveness are the prevailing mode.

"I do not live a life surrounded only by gay men. All my friends...have for a long time accepted this facet of my personality without reservation, knowing that I was a whole being divisible into acceptable and nonacceptable parts. My two beautiful sisters have shown me only warmth and love and remarkable understanding, as I hope my brother will when he is old enough to comprehend the implications of the oppressive social stigma attached to my sexuality. I will not live a life of fear and shame. Too many important matters interest me for me to spend my life concerned with other peoples' unjust and inhumane moral prejudices.

"It is very important that you, as parents, not feel guilty because I, your son, am a homosexual. Guilt implies fault and fault implies a misdeed, and I cannot consider myself as some mistake, to be altered if at all possible and accepted only with resignation. I must ask you to accept me fully, as a human being worthy of respect and trust and love. I am no less than any other being simply because I am a homosexual!

"Finally, I hope that you can accept this part of me without reservations and regrets... I believe that your capacity to love can encompass the totality of myself and that you will know that I am the very same son that you have known for twenty-one years. If I disappoint you, I am sorry, but I cannot spend my life in apology. I must look to the future and so must you..."

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