Straight Parents, Gay Children: Keeping Families Together

The courageous and levelheaded Straight Parents, Gay Children, Armistead Maupin comments, "shows the parents of gay children how to stop merely tolerating their kids and start being their heroes." Robert A. Bernstein made this essential move to "heroism" himself after his daughter Bobbi came out to him and her stepmother in the mid-1980s, when she was 19. Soon after, they attended a meeting of P-FLAG (Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays) at a nearby church, and Bernstein realized that he had joined a small but powerful group of people unable to support the continued oppression of their gay loved ones. Bernstein brings together stirring quotes (even from such unlikely sources as the late Senator Barry Goldwater) and inspiring stories, like those of Jane Spahr, the first openly gay minister to be called as a pastor of the Presbyterian church (and later denied the post) and of Dr. Roscoe Thorne, a former lumberjack and weightlifter who spoke to a packed room at a military hearing set up to discharge his son from the navy despite his brilliant career as a "Top Gun" pilot. A useful book for therapists, clergy, and educators, and an essential resource for parents of gay and bisexual children. --Regina Marler