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.”