God is love.

Growing up one of my best friends was a boy. He lived down my street so we were most of the time hanging out together. We’d be at my pool after school or during summer break. We’d go through my closet to come up with cute outfits for me to wear. We’d listen to the radio for any songs to dance to. Or we’d blast some of my CDs. We’d look through Magazines and cut out images that we wanted on our vision boards. His jokes always made me laugh. Then his laugh would make me laugh harder. We made so many good memories together.

On the weekends, I’d even go to church with him & his family. They were Christians. Us kids always had fun! My friend was one of the best humans I had ever met.

But there was one thing he was hiding. He had a secret that even he couldn’t tell anyone until he told me. He told me he had a crush on a guy.

I was so proud of him for accepting that truth. His truth. But then he went on to say, it doesn’t matter because he could never be gay. Because if he was his parents would disown him completely.

My heart was breaking for him as I saw him cry in my room telling me that he could never truly be himself because then he wouldn’t have a family anymore. He wouldn’t have a place to call home.

His truth came as no surprise to me for I knew all along. We were best friends after all. I would never let anyone bully him. I’d threaten to fuck them up if they tried.

I was abit of a chola when I was younger and everyone was scared of me. But I was also popular, an athlete, part of the student council, and a straight A student.

Anyways, that was my first experience with dealing with homophobic people. So what did I do? Well I didn’t stay quite. A couple of days went by and we ended up hanging out at his house. His parents were home and decided to talk to us - a casual conversation. Then the topic came up - not by me but by his dad telling my friend to “ stop being like that” - meaning stop acting gay.

I couldn’t stay quite!

Me:”what is wrong if your son is gay?!”

His dad:”It’s a sin! He will go to hell!”

Me:”That’s bullshit! God is love, right?!”

His dad:”yes.”

Me:”If god is love so is your son. He has all the love to give to the world. And just because his romantic love is towards men it doesn’t make it evil or wrong. It doesn’t give you the right to tell him he can’t be his beautiful self! What kind of parent are?!”

Like I said, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. After that, my friend wouldn’t talk to me for a while but I knew I had to say what I had to say. Because how is it that it was the right thing to protect my friend from bullies at school but not from the very bullies he had as parents?! Like wtf! He is your child! Equally created by God,right?!