Fortunately, I've never had to deal with it. But I have to agree with gay columnist Dan Savage, who recently made the point that homophobic relatives have as much to lose as the gay member of the family they are abusing. He advised a gay correspondent to tell his homophobic parent that if they persisted in their abuse, he would leave and never speak to them again. Such a strategy could solve the problem, but if it didn't, it wasn't worth saving anyway. Blood relationships are not necessarily good relationships.

I am pleased that I was able to convince the older brother of a gay student I once taught that his brother's homosexuality was only a small part of who his brother was, and that his brother hadn't chosen to be homosexual, he simply was homosexual, and no one was the poorer for it. They were able to continue their formerly good relationship.

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