Amazon Reader Review: Coming out to my mom and dad was the most terrifying prospect I ever had to deal with, but I knew the day would come eventually when I had to face them with my being gay. Like so many gay people, I had no idea how to do it or even how to know that I was ready. Thank God for this book! It helped to make a potentially horrible experience better for me and for them. Thank you, Ms. Borkek!

If the coming out process is difficult for gay people, it is often equally difficult for their parents. Confusion, anger, and fear frequently cause fathers and mothers of gay men and lesbians to disavow, strike out against, and even resent their children. For many parents, a child's coming out feels like the ultimate rejection--not only of their dreams and hopes but of their own heterosexuality. In Now That You Know: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Their Gay and Lesbian Children, Betty Fairchild and Nancy Hayward--the mothers of, respectively, a gay man and a lesbian--have charted the rough seas that almost every parent of a gay person travels.

 

Fairchild and Hayward presume that homosexuality is a positive good, and that it is willful ignorance and homophobia that are moral wrongs. They also believe that families can and should love all members and that it is distraught or confused parents (not their gay offspring) who must change. Mixing common sense with a firm sense of social justice and love, the authors systematically address almost all of the problems faced by parents of gay people. Answering questions on religion, AIDS, health, children, alternative families, and sex, they make the complicated gay world--often a nightmare vision for "just out" parents of gays--not only manageable but happy and nurturing.

 

 

Grade 5 Up-- An estimated one in ten teenagers is homosexual. This book addresses the other nine. The Cohens discuss emotions, attitudes, and facts that shape our perceptions of gay and lesbian people in America today. One informative chapter answers questions "you would be to embarrassed to ask," such as "Is it catching?" and "What should I do if a gay person comes on to me?" Another chapter gives a short history of social attitudes toward homosexuality. There is a frank discussion of the spread of AIDS and, at the back of the book, an annotated list of films, books, and videos. Interviews with teenagers who are struggling to come to terms with their sexual orientation help straight readers understand the realities that their gay and lesbian counterparts face. In trying to address the subject on a teenager's level, the Cohens have used some highly charged language (Oscar Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, is referred to as an "upper-class twerp"). Statements such as, "Being gay is a social disaster. Who wants to be known as "the faggot's friend?", while intended to show that the authors understand teens' feelings, also sell readers short. Elaine Landau's Different Drummer (Messner, 1986) offers a more even-toned presentation of similar material. Unique to the Cohens' book is an excellent and thorough discussion of religion and homosexuality.

 

Well-known Christian gay activist Glaser (Uncommon Calling, John Knox, 1996) asserts that the Christian Scriptures themselves defend the self-affirmation of gays and lesbians in the Church and provide pertinent examples of courage and openness toward outcasts from the lives and teachings of Moses, Jesus, the Psalmist, and others. He also provides seven sample rituals of commitment and celebration (not including, it should be noted, marriage) for the Church's rejected children.

 

Organized around the themes "created in God's image," "called as community," and "citizens of a commonwealth," this collection of two months' worth of prayers has theological depth and contemporary relevance. Both the prose introductions to the themes and the prayers themselves encourage honest struggle and genuine faith and confront the paradoxical relationship of life and death, suffering and love.