"Tiny Smiling Daddy"

                               
"I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant." - Paul Newman

"Coming out" and owning who you are has become more and more common because people have started to accept the gay community. However, there are still the "Jesus hates fags" groups who march around with picket signs protesting against the LGBT community. In the Case of Tiny Smiling Daddy a young girl, Kitty, comes out to her father, Stew, and he doesn't take it very well.

 "You're a lesbian? Fine," he said. "You mean nothing to me. You walk out that door, it doesn't matter. And if you come back in, I'm going to spit in your face. I don't care if I'm on my deathbed, I'll still have the energy to spit in your face."

Despite how cruel and harsh this is for a father to say to his daughter it is, unfortunately, not an uncommon reaction among parents. 

Growing Up LGBT in America: View Statistics

Kitty publishes an article in Self magazine that talks about her sexuality and her relationship with her father unbeknownst to her father. Now i'm not saying that the daughter needed to ask permission to publish the article she did however, ethically, need to tell her father that she was publishing it so the father didn't find out from someone other than her. I can understand her reluctance to tell her father when he is not accepting of her life style. I don't know the father's background or why he is so homophobic, it could be his own dysfunctional relationship with his father which he talks about in the story. You kind of feel sorry for Stew because his own ego blinds him from seeing why and how he's lost his daughter. 

I myself am straight however I have a number of friends that are not. I also have a cousin who is bi and my grandmother a Christian woman who loves all 15 of her grandchildren didn't react that badly. My grandmother was much like how Kitty described her father, "my father may love me but he doesn't love the way I live". But unlike Stew my grandmother would never "spit in your face". There are different levels of acceptance and non acceptance and deep down we all want to be accepted for who we are no matter what facade we put up. I would like to hope that maybe in the next generation being gay or transgender or what ever you chose to identify as won't be such a big deal. And I hate to quote Lady Gaga's Born this Way but the simple lyrics about accepting yourself is what made it a gay anthem.

No matter gay, straight or bi
Lesbian, transgender life
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born to survive
No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born to be brave

Tiny Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill