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[Homophobia and Suicidality with Uplifting Ending] [Yes this is about Josh Weed's divorce]
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What a post
DʀᴀɢɴHᴏᴍᴇᴏᴘᴀᴛʜʏ
...Okay I don't know these people but one line sticks out to me about their relationship going forward and it brought tears to my eyes.
DʀᴀɢɴHᴏᴍᴇᴏᴘᴀᴛʜʏ
"Oh my gosh, it said homestead, Loll. Maybe we don’t have to live apart! Maybe we don’t have to break our family up…. ever, and just add future partners to it when the time comes!"
DISCIPLINE 𓌏
I don't know these people enough to be exactly sure how it's going to work out, I think that many families have had decent results with parents living just in the same city, but it is a promising thought for very close co-parenting
DʀᴀɢɴHᴏᴍᴇᴏᴘᴀᴛʜʏ
It's also. Family is a Very Complicated Thing. And it doesn't always have to be straightforward and simple and just "Mommy and Daddy and their kids." And that seems to be what they're rolling with. Supporting each other.
Blighty
i would feel a little better about this if they hadn't been used as an example to shame gay men back into the closet for years
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Yeah this has only broken a couple days ago but I really hope they can undo some of this damage because... yikes...
Blighty
as an evangelical I've heard about this guy and his godliness and how homosexuality and living in a sin is a choice for years
Blighty
the damage they've done by trying to push this narrative and the church seizing upon it is irreparable
Blighty
good for him that he's realized that, at least
Gwiggs
Yeah same. I'm having some serious trouble feeling sympathy for this guy.
Blighty
but I hope he recognizes that his actions and his pushing of his choice has been immensely painful to anyone LGBT in a conservative church situation
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Maybe it is different for me because this was the only thing I read on this blog so far, perhaps precisely because my own experience of religious homophobia was much less forceful
DʀᴀɢɴHᴏᴍᴇᴏᴘᴀᴛʜʏ
See, I have sympathy because... I grew up with a lot of feelings of, "IF you pretend to be straight, if you ignore your attraction to girls, then it'll go away because God hates gay people." And internalized homophobia is very damaging and it causes a lot of harm to not just you but people around you as you try to pretend you're okay and that your misery
DʀᴀɢɴHᴏᴍᴇᴏᴘᴀᴛʜʏ
is just temporary and It'll Be Fine.
king NEET
i didn't know anything about him until now but that coming out post from five years ago is so sad
king NEET
i hate that his christian damage was used to continue hurting himself and others, i hope everything can move forward from now
DʀᴀɢɴHᴏᴍᴇᴏᴘᴀᴛʜʏ
I don't. Talk about it much, but when I was younger, in my early-to-mid-teens, I did have a boyfriend. Because I was Supposed To. Because good Christian girls are straight. And even if my family itself wasn't overly religious, I... I grew up in Oklahoma. Which can be considered part of the Bible Belt. So I was surrounded by Christian Rhetoric.
DʀᴀɢɴHᴏᴍᴇᴏᴘᴀᴛʜʏ
And it was hella damaging. I still struggle with the revelation that I'm not broken and I'm fine and that I don't need to fix myself because of this and I'm turning 28 next month and have been out for ten years now. I'm married even.
king NEET
i completely understand, i've unfortunately had a similar experience in my life
DʀᴀɢɴHᴏᴍᴇᴏᴘᴀᴛʜʏ
It's easy to do a lot to justify to yourself that you're not as miserable as you actually are in that situation, unfortunately. :c Because the other option is... Not good.
DISCIPLINE 𓌏
OK now I'm reading the five years ago post and mouths what the fuck
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Sort of my experience is like... I believed that there are guidelines from god and humans have completely free will to follow them constantly and sometimes instead use their free will to """ sin """
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And instead it's more like people can feel very strong pressure whether inside themselves or from society, after which they still ultimately make choices.
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So if those choices by a person are still something unacceptable to you, I respect that 100%
go rimbaud
yeah, i feel for them a lot and definitely understand where that damage came from on their end, and am glad for them to realize what was wrong and why, and doing their best to fix it
go rimbaud
but the fact that their story went viral at all isn't necessarily their fault, and absolutely came from someplace sinister
Blighty
I have high doubts that they published it on the Internet and talked about their story repeatedly without understanding that word would spread
Blighty
This is an only slightly less hypocritical version of the person passing anti-gay legislation while secretly searching for male escorts on the side
go rimbaud
as i understand it, they wouldn't be asked to talk about it until after it went viral
go rimbaud
and i think it's even less than that, since they weren't just used as anti-lgbt propaganda, they were victims of it as well
Blighty
ok you don't publish a blog post
Blighty
without wanting people to share and talk about it
Blighty
if you publish a blog post the obvious intent is for people to learn about your story
go rimbaud
but wanting people to share and talk about it and it going viral are two vastly different things
Blighty
of course internalized homophobia is difficult to deal with, but I didn't go around submitting stories about how God wants me to marry a woman and convince others that this was the right thing to do morally and spiritually
Blighty
he was a counselor
Blighty
for people with this exact issue
Blighty
I'm not saying they're bad people I'm saying he caused irreparable harm with his internalized homophobia and if he wants to make up for it this is the first in a long series of steps
go rimbaud
from reading the post i think it was recognizing that and being a counselor that played a huge part in his stance changing
go rimbaud
like a whole section is about how the church's stance on lgbtq people is fucking all of them up
Blighty
that's great and I'm glad he's finally recognized that but I'm certainly not going to praise him for doing the right thing after years of causing harm
Blighty
spend 5 years actively spreading this message in the LDS church and in other conservative religions working with youths and others dealing with this issue
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Yeah I don't really think it can be said that Josh Weed and Lolly Weed were not previously long-term homophobic activists. Even if the very first post spread far further than intended (and their blog seems to have been at least a little popular before what happened), rather than withdrawing and demanding privacy he went on Nightline etc
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Okay I put another content warning onto the top because the last thing I wanted was to remind anyone of the pain they had experienced in the past.