This is a love story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not the usual one. Or one that many of its participants ever imagined they would be involved in. It\u2019s about unconditional motherly love. And boy, is it fierce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are mothers who have been told \u2014 often by faith leaders and religious communities \u2014 to abandon children on the LGBTQ2 spectrum. Their kids are gay or lesbian or bisexual or pansexual or trans or two-spirit or intersex or queer or, in some other way, not cisgender or heterosexual. But the mothers adamantly refuse to shun them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, they are mustering by the thousands, secretly, invis\u00adibly, from all over Canada and the United States, linked on private online sites. They are repudiating those who tell them to cut ties with their kids and are joyfully standing in for parents who have done the unthinkable and shunned their own flesh and blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hundreds join this underground virtual network each week. Refugees from conservative religions flock to sites with names like Mama Bears<\/a>, Mama Dragons, Free Mom Hugs, Serendipitydodah for Moms and FreedHearts. This is not so much a trend as a movement, raw with momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen your child comes out, especially if you are in a religion or an organization that is against LGBTQ2 people in the community, it\u2019s very isolating. It\u2019s very lonely,\u201d says Dana Burgess, 55, who attended a Mormon church near Calgary until her daughter came out. \u201cIn this day and age, the first thing you do is go online and look for others with the same experience. It is amazing how people you never meet \u2026 become such an integral part of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For all its ferocity, this is not an easy love story. The fact that it exists at all is a product of hatred. Faith leaders and family have told some of these mothers that their children are abominations who will burn in hell. Others hear that their children should be put to death along with anybody who supports them. Susan Cottrell, 60, of Austin, Tex., has been called \u201cSatan\u2019s daughter\u201d for, among other things, founding the non-profit FreedHearts in 2013 along with her husband, Robert. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite backlash, the movement is finding its public voice. Since starting their organization, Cottrell and her husband have become prominent among parents of faith who are firmly standing beside their LGBTQ2 kids. The TEDx talk Cottrell gave<\/a> in January about her decision to choose her kids over her church has more than 750,000 views on YouTube. \u201cIt\u2019s an idea whose time has come,\u201d she says. \u201cThe rejection has gone under the radar for so long. People aren\u2019t going to have it any more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cottrell and many of these moms are reclaiming the Bible as a guidebook of love and acceptance, rather than a screed of hatred and rejection. They are either challenging their faith institutions to wake up or are ditching them as irrelevant. As they do so, they are charting a new path for their own faith, and, maybe, the future church. And, of course, this love is turning them into remorseless campaigners for human rights. \u201cWe look all soft and cuddly and lovely,\u201d says Calgary\u2019s Burgess. \u201cBut just try and do anything or say anything that negatively affects our cubs and we fight back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source:<\/p>\n\n\n\n