Randy Robert Potts (pictured), a former middle school English teacher now pursuing a career as a writer, says in a column and accompanying video for The Washington Post that his grandfather “and most of his generation” describe gay people “as an abomination.”
In the video, Potts talks about his uncle Ronald David Roberts. Ronald came out to his father in high school. According to Potts, Oral Roberts “did not want a gay son,” and when Ronald was in his 30s, six months after getting a divorce, he shot and killed himself.
Potts says that his mother, like her father, does not want a gay son. At his grandfather’s funeral just last year, Potts says his mother told him that “hell does exist, and I’m going there.”
In the years since coming out, Potts says he’s lived in fear of losing his children because he’s gay. He says he even considered suicide, but with help and time, it got better.
"We could have this debate, but meanwhile, this same group, these gay men and women, will be clamoring, and begging, for healing. They will be dying, too often, from suicide, unwilling to live in a world where this debate is more valuable than their well being. They will be unable to visit their partner in the hospital. They will be unable to legally marry the partner they have loved, and lived with, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for sometimes ten, sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty years, or more...I disagree with much of what my grandfather taught, but he was right about one thing - healing is simple. It is about establishing a point of contact between a source of power and a person in need. There is a need for men and women of all faiths to reach out, in healing, to their gay brothers and sisters, and welcome them as equal citizens, with equal rights, no longer separate. "
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