I met my husband the second semester of my Sophomore year. Through getting to know him I learned he was deeply religious and raised conservatively. Both of my parents grew up in Catholic families but by third grade, we had completely stopped attending church. By the time I got to college I would identify as agnostic. Once we started dating I would occasionally attend church with him but never became a member.
After five years we got married and shortly after started a family. We would attend the type of church he grew up with when we were free on Sundays but I never became a member, attending more to support my husband than anything. A couple more years went by of occasionally attending church and then we relocated for work to my husband’s hometown.
Over the years my husband and I have had many discussions about our beliefs and we both agreed that we felt that homosexuality is not a choice, it is how a person is born and should be accepted with open arms; we believe in gender equality. We want our girls to know that just because they were born female does not limit who they are or what they can accomplish and we also want them to know if they fall in love, whether it’s with a boy or a girl, we will be happy for them and welcome their loved one into the family.
We knew we needed to find a new church. For my husband, this meant parting with the religion he grew up with and had been more or less practicing for 35 years. So we went church shopping and after trying out a couple of different area churches we found our home at a contemporary parish. After attending just one service we both agreed that we really liked the pastors, the message they were sharing and the congregation.
A while back my husband sat down with his parents and explained to them why he chose to leave the church he grew up in and they seemed to understand his reasoning. Since then they have actually attended our church with us on several occasions when the girls were singing during the service, which because of their beliefs we didn’t think would happen. This past spring our oldest had her first communion on Maundy Thursday. We invited my husband’s family as a courtesy and were pleasantly surprised when my daughters’ grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins showed up to see her take her first communion.
Even though our church practices differently, they recognized that this was a big milestone in my daughter’s religious journey and came to love and support her. Our children are being raised in a home with parents and a religion that will accept them for who they are, no matter who they love and we couldn’t be happier with our choice and our new church family.
—
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join like-minded individuals in The Good Men Project Premium Community.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
—