Everyone Needs Love

1679 Words4 Pages

David has been my best friend since eighth grade. He has helped me through countless breakups and heartbreaks, he has held me while I cried, and he has taken up for me when I need friend. My mother will tell you that he is like the son she never had, and my friends will tell you that it is a wonder how, after six years of being best friends, we haven’t found a way to kill each other. Some years ago, David nervously told me that he was gay. He has grown up in the church all of his life, his parents are openly “anti-gay,” and therefore, David is forced to a life of secrecy. It has been a struggle, but David has embraced who he is, and even his partner of three years has become one of my very dear friends. Last month, David’s parents announced that they would be starting their own church. When my parents asked them what made them decide to leave their current church home, they replied by saying that their church had decided to allow a homosexual to be the priest, and seeing how this is “an abomination to God,” they thought it unwise to stay in a church “that allows those kinds of people in.” Since then, David and I have had endless discussions about what he is going to do. After all, to the rest of the world, he is an openly gay man. He still lives with his parents, goes to school full-time, and still manages to maintain a relationship with the same man for the past three years.

I do not like the conclusion that David is forced to come to. I wish more than anything that his parents would love and accept him for who he is, their son, without regard to the technicalities within his life. But David has decided that even at twenty years of age, he cannot ever tell his parents what he is without the risk of them disowning him...

... middle of paper ...

...e girl who is victim to abuses at home. David, Maria, and Kelly all come from different situations, but they are linked in that they yearn for one thing: love and acceptance. I wish more than ever, that the world wasn’t such a cruel place; where children are not teased and bullied in school for being “different,” where parents are accepting of their children’s choices even if they may not agree, where parents do not act in violence towards loved ones and cause harm, and where young adults like Kelly do not turn to alcohol, drugs, and self-mutilation for escape from the pain they experience every day. But wishing only wounds the heart, and soon the reality sets in that we are not fortunate enough to live in such a place. The love of a child is so pure, and I can’t quite seem to understand how, between then and now, we as a society have lost that towards each other.

Open Document