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Do the right thing!

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BayGBM:
Q:  I am a young gay man in college. My father generously pays for my tuition and rent. The problem is that he does not know I am gay. He has made it very clear that if I were, he would not only withdraw all financial support but also cast himself entirely out of my life. His suspicion arose in high school when he found love letters between me and another male student. I swore they were meaningless and have since been defending my heterosexuality. Questions about my sexuality are inevitable whenever I come home. My father has demanded I produce archives of all emails and text messages for him to review, although I have successfully refused these requests on the grounds that he has no claim to my adult communications. Is it ethical for me to continue accepting financial support for my education and my career that will come from it? Could I continue to lie to accept the support and one day disclose my sexuality and pay him back to absolve myself of any ethical wrongdoing? NAME WITHHELD

Amy Bloom: It’s terrible that it should be so hard to get a college education in this country without accumulating massive debt. But what’s happening here is an issue not just of finances but of a real wish on the part of the father to control and bully his son. The fact that the father demands that the son produce archives of all emails and text messages for him to review? That’s just abuse. That’s not about money, and it may not even necessarily be about his being gay. If there were no questions, you could say nothing about your private life and your sexuality.

Lots of people keep these things from their parents, and you can do that in a completely honorable way. The letter writer can, in his position of dependency, lie to his father and know that although he is not taking the bravest or most admirable stance, his lying is understandable. You can certainly forgive yourself for the lying in this circumstance and maybe be mindful of the fact that this will not last and that you won’t have to keep lying.


Kwame Anthony Appiah: It is important, given the general way in which college education is funded in our society, not to think of the parental support here as a kind of free gift that the parent is entitled to withdraw on any basis. Basically, a responsible parent who has the resources has an obligation to provide his fair share after financial aid and contributions from the kid based on his work and so on.

I don’t think that the parent has a right to threaten to withdraw support for any reason except a failure to be serious about college. If you know that if you tell him the truth, he’ll treat you in a way he ought not to treat you, then that’s a circumstance in which a lie — while it continues to be a bad thing — is permissible, given that the consequence of telling the truth will be that somebody else will behave quite impermissibly toward you.

Not only is this young man entitled to conceal the truth from his father, but he doesn’t owe him a repayment later when he can afford it. Threatening not to do your duty if your son turns out to be gay — which is, after all, something over which he has absolutely no control — is awful in many ways. The fact that he would fail to discharge his obligation to pay his fair share if the son told the truth is a reason not to tell him the truth.


Bloom: Calling attention to the Point Foundation is probably one of the most useful things we’ve ever been able to do. There’s nothing healthy or self-affirming in having to constantly lie to a bullying, homophobic father, so the possibility of having the son’s college education funded by the Point Foundation might be a much better solution.

Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy at N.Y.U. His most recent book is “Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity.” Amy Bloom is a novelist and had a psychotherapy practice for 25 years. Her most recent book is “Lucky Us.” Kenji Yoshino teaches law at N.Y.U. and is the author, most recently, of “Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial.”

drkaje:
I'd never be bored enough to read all the subsequent posts but here's my take on the woman asking if she should out the daughter.

It's a classic case of people focusing on stupid crap while the younger kid sees the important issue: The chick and GF are not following the Grandmother's house rules. It's disrespectful. It's not about being a lesbian, Lebanese, or anything else. Instead of saying "Follow the house rule, or don't go" the writer decides to be passive-aggressive and pretend it's some huge thing about being gay. She's uncomfortable about the kid's sexuality and wants more people to help bear the cross, LOL!

Its bad behavior, period. She's getting a free pass by hiding behind sexuality and  using people's uncomfortableness with confrontation to get her own way.

Plenty of people have rules regarding unwed couples sharing a bed. Old fashioned, or not, there are people who feel a certain way. They deserve the same degree of respect as someone with a different opinion.

Being gay doesn't mean there are separate rules.

BayGBM:
Q: I am in the military and have been deployed a number of times. Recently, a friend with whom I served in Iraq took his own life and that of his wife. The news is devastating. Since I hadn’t spoken to him in years, I have been trying to figure out what happened through news articles and friends. I have been angered to see the loose connections that the media (and Internet comments) are making between this tragedy and his service and deployment. While he was deployed, he never saw any action, never fired his weapon; I was with him on every convoy. Is it ethical to make this information public to help move the conversation forward on what caused this, or should I remain silent, as I can’t know if this experience helped cause this tragedy? Could the time he spent during his deployment contemplating the possibilities and preparing for what he might have to do have done just as much damage as actually doing it? Name Withheld

A: I am so sorry about your former comrade in arms and his wife. The fact that you spent so much time together in the service means you have better ideas than most about what really happened. It’s quite plausible, as you suggest, that psychological harm can come simply from anticipating life-or-death decisions; it’s perfectly possible, too, that his deployment had little to do with this tragedy. Above all, it’s unfortunate that people who don’t know much about his life have pounced on the story to air their own theories or agendas. Your desire to set the record straight is commendable. (I’m assuming it doesn’t violate the terms of your continuing service.)

The news media and the online commentariat seem to be in the grips of a story template — that of the combat-traumatized veteran who explodes. You rightly want to challenge the cliché. This man might have had a previous susceptibility, a hidden fault line in his psyche, and we can wonder whether the Army could do more to identify and treat mental illness. We can also wonder, alas, how much we can do to forestall such events. Complicating the easy conclusions would be a useful thing to do.

So you should feel free to weigh in. But you shouldn’t feel obliged to. Because it’s so hard to figure out what led to what, your contribution may not make a real difference to the conversation. That’s no reason not to try to add nuance to an oversimplified narrative. It’s hard, however, to drive out false assumptions with real uncertainties — to replace simplicities with complexities. This may be a fight that can’t be won.

drkaje:
Dear Name Withheld,

Stop being selfish and keep your pie-hole shut.

Don't deal with the fear (of it happening to you) in a way compound a family's tragedy and suffering.

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