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My Christian Mom
A church-going mom called her gay son last night to ask what he thinks about today’s ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions in their native Oklahoma. The conversation didn’t go as he expected.
By Rob Hamm
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 2, 2004

My Mom is a Christian in the truest sense of the word. She was raised in the Methodist Church—my grandpa was a Methodist minister—and is now a deacon of the Nazarene Church in our hometown in Oklahoma.

When I came out to her 12 years ago, she was always telling me how worried she was about my soul, and that she was constantly praying for me to be changed, or to see the error of my ways, and give up this “lifestyle.” She always cried when I called because of this, and my brothers threatened to come up here and “beat it out of me.”

Needless to say, I was concerned when I got a call from Mom last night asking about same-sex marriage.

I give you this background to help you realize what I was expecting and how shocked I was about her reaction. There’s a ballot initiative in Oklahoma that would outlaw same-sex marriage and civil unions of any sort, and Mom wanted to know what my partner and I had to say about it. I just assumed that since she had this Christian background and identified as a Christian that she would be on the side of the conservative religious right on this. I was wrong.

I explained to Mom that even though I have been with my partner for 12 years now and our bank accounts and all possessions are combined, if something happened to him, his family could come in and take everything we have together, prevent me from making medical decisions on his behalf, challenge our legal wills, and a multitude of other things that are taken for granted in a hetero marriage, and that even common-law marriages have more rights than we do currently. I explained that we are being made second-class citizens based on the simple fact that we are the same sex, for no other reason.

I also explained to her that there are a small number of people who would like to take all our rights away, and this is just one step of many toward that end. She listened thoughtfully, asking clarifying questions, and we talked about it for about half an hour.

I braced for the firestorm of condemnation she would normally unload on me previously when I called, but it never came.

When I had finished explaining to her everything that I felt, she had made up her mind to vote against the measure on the ballot today in Oklahoma because, as she put it, “God meant for everyone to have choice in their lives. That is all about being human, and anyone that takes that choice away is acting like God. That is blasphemy, and I won’t be a part of it.”

She went on to say, “I don’t think it can be changed or should be changed that you are gay. I don’t know if you were made that way or not, but as long as there is a possibility that it is internal and can’t be changed, I cannot judge anyone based on that. Besides, the Bible says there is only one judge, and we should not be putting ourselves in his place.” She said that since my partner’s family had disowned him when he came out to them, he was now her son with all the rights and privileges accorded to that position.

I was more than floored by this. I got a feeling coming away from it that although I thought many years ago after coming out to her that I would never have the same close relationship with my mom as I had always had when growing up, I realize now that our relationship has moved to a whole new level of respect and understanding.

Above all, with just one phone call I realized that hope is never lost—only delayed.

It took 12 years for my mom to get to this point, and I know the world’s perceptions and many decades of discrimination will take a while to change. I have hope that I didn’t have before this phone call that eventually the true Christians like my mom will win out, and eventually basic rights will apply to everyone equally, no matter what.

I don’t know what I may have done in my former life to deserve a mom as loving as mine, but I want to make sure I continue that into the future.

Sorry about the long letter, but this is an encouraging sign that I thought should be shared. Thanks for reading.

A native of Wilburton, Okla., Hamm and his partner now live in Seattle. To contact the writer, send an e-mail to editor@advocate.com with the subject line “Forward to Rob Hamm,” and the e-mail will be forwarded.

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