Patrick Bradley is a New York-based food columnist and founder of TheGayFoodie.com. I’ve never heard of him, which doesn’t matter; somebody does need to explain to me why a writer’s sexual orientation has anything to do with food, and why this isn’t just blatant group identification tribal exploitation of the kind that is dividing this country and culture. But I digress…this stuff annoys me, but I digress.

Bradley sent to the gay website Out an open letter he wrote (and sent? Let’s hope so) to his parents, who refused to attend his wedding to his same sex partner more than two years ago, and who have been estranged from him ever since. I would call the letter an ethics bomb, an action that hurls ethical dilemmas and problems in all directions, for good or ill. I’m publishing it in its entirety, and will have comments afterward.

Dear Mom and Dad,

It’s been 890 days since the day that you both decided not to partake in my wedding. I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to say anything about it. Perhaps I’ve been afraid of what the family will think, what the family might say. Or perhaps I’ve been afraid of losing even more of my wonderful, beautiful family, whom I think about day and night.

But the time is now because I’ve finally grown too tired of the 890 days and nights of being haunted by your presence—by your lack of presence, to be more precise. I’m tired of night after night of dreaming of you. And tonight, I had the most unpleasant of dreams—one that jolted me from my sleep and disallowed me to return to it. So at 6:22 a.m., after little more than three hours of sleep, I’m writing this letter to you—knowing that it is taking from my opportunity of getting a full night’s rest before work; but I’d rather work on little sleep than on little dignity.

As not to keep anyone in the family excluded (any longer), I’m sending this letter to everyone involved. I want everyone to know what had happened on my last visit to you, before my beautiful, wonderful wedding. I’m not writing this letter in an act of vengeance (even though it feels like it is), but rather, I’m doing it because I’m tired of walking on eggshells around my siblings, godchildren, nephews and nieces. I’m tired of having to be “civil” with both of you, “for the sake of the family.” I’m also tired of the unwanted holiday and birthday gifts, and I’m tired of you having the audacity to speak to my husband (and myself) as if nothing has happened. Have you no shame?

I think it’s time that I told my side of the story to the family, as I’m sure you have already told yours. I want everything to be out in the open, so that I can feel like I have all of my dignity with me when I will undoubtedly see you at family gatherings—gatherings which I now would rather avoid if it means that either of you will be present; I have other ways of seeing my family.

On May 13, 2013, I made the trip out to New Jersey—the day after Mother’s Day—to take you out for lunch because I had to work the previous day. You picked me up at the train station and we stopped at A & P to pick up a birthday card for one of the boys. On the way there, I told you about how Michael’s extended family, who’d be traveling from Georgia, Colorado and beyond—in part to meet you!—were so excited about meeting you. You simply replied that you both would not be going to the wedding. I tried my best to retain composure, thinking that I’d be able to change your mind before the big day.

By the time we left A & P, you started citing the bible, while unsuspecting shoppers were bustling about us, running their afternoon errands. And by the time we got back to the car, you’d mentioned your fear of an angel appearing to you, saying, “Stop praying for Patrick! He’s already in hell!” I knew then that it was time to go to my last resort and give an ultimatum which I never expected would be fulfilled.

I explained to you, simply and calmly, that if you (both) did not attend my wedding, you would not see me again after the wedding: no holidays, no birthdays, no hospitals, no funerals. What I heard next put me into a state of mild shock. You followed up, quickly and readily, with, “We know that! I talked to your dad last night and we already accept it! We said that we give you back to God!” I recall other things being said, which I’ll omit here. As I sat in shock—shock that you would rather never see me again than attend my wedding—you simply moved onto your next subject: “Well, I guess you don’t want to go to lunch anymore.” As I opened the car door to walk back to the train station, you offered, “Let me drive you back to the train. Let it be the one last thing that I do for you.” If there was any doubt in my mind that I’d misunderstood what you’d said to me previously, you had clarified your intentions then and there.

Mom and Dad: By not attending my wedding, you rejected me, and you rejected my husband, who is my own immediate family. I, in turn, reject anyone that rejects my family—out of dignity and respect for it. But I am offering resolution.

I will forgive you both for what you have done, if you, in front of the entire family (from youngest to eldest) admit that what you both did was wrong; admit that you both should have been at the wedding. Because I do think that what you both have done is shameful. You’ve torn a family apart. But what breaks my heart most is what this has done to the youngest in the family—the ones who were too young to know, or too young to understand what was going on. The ones whose only conclusion was perhaps “Patrick must be bad” or “He must have done something wrong because Grandma didn’t go to his wedding.” That is where I think you both should bear the shame, not me.

I want everyone to know everything. And maybe tonight, I’ll finally be able to sleep the whole night through.

With Best Intentions,

Patrick

Observations:

1. The conduct of any parent who rejects a child absolutely and forever is unethical. This is as close to an absolute ethics breach as there can be. The same is true of a child rejecting a parent, unless the parent has engaged in conduct that violates civilized standards regarding the care and proper treatment of a child. In other words, if your mother threw you in a ditch so she could go to a party, your Mother’s Day obligations are moot.

2. Rejecting a child because the child’s life choices are not the parent’s choices is especially unethical. Human beings have autonomy, deserve autonomy and have a right to autonomy. Parents lose their right to dictate conduct to their offspring when legal majority is reached. For a parent to use any means other than logic, reason and expressions of belief to force a child to change a major life decision is indefensible. Using the threat of ejecting the child from the family is an abuse of power.

3. Parents do not have to accept a child’s choice of spouse, but they have to respect the child’s right to love and live with whomever he chooses. Refusing to attend a child’s wedding represents the slimiest depths of parental selfishness, for the wedding is not about the parents. They don’t have to actively participate, though it is cruel and hurtful not to. They certainly do not have to approve. Their presence, however, signifies nothing less than the existence of parental bonds, love and support for the child, loyalty, unconditional love, and support, not necessarily of every choice the child makes, but of their life’s journey, whatever turns it takes.

4. The actions of parents who regard religion as a higher priority than family bonds may be moral (if the religion demands it), but they cannot be ethical. No ethical system supports a wedding snub, or could; this is one of those situations where the moral logic is “It’s right because God says so, and that’s enough,” and in ethics, it isn’t enough. It’s also not logical. God, if he’s there, is a big boy: surely He can take the minor disappointment of the male child of one of his flock marrying a man. I doubt that He’ll think about it much at all. He’s certainly not going to rain down fire and brimstone because his parents just come to the wedding, or even the wedding reception. Or—The Horror—if they give a gift to the couple. To the son, however, the symbolic rejection by his parents of boycotting his wedding day is crushing. Parents who think their God wants that have an inexplicable faith in a mean-spirited and petty deity.

They also may just be dumb as salamanders, which would be my diagnosis.

5. It is not only antipathy to homosexuality that causes parents to boycott weddings, though all reasons—racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, partyism— are equally indefensible ethically. I was the best man in a wedding boycotted by the groom’s parents because–get this–they were scientists who regarded the Catholic Church as anti-science, and the bride was Catholic. In the clip above from “Fiddler on the Roof,” the musicals protagonist Tevye disowns his youngest daughter for marrying outside the Jewish faith, but at the end of the show, he gives her a grudging blessing. The message: he’s a devout Jew and a conservative, but he’s still her father, still loves her, and is not an asshole.

6. The son, Patrick, has written a letter that is an ambiguous mess. If he really wanted reconciliation with his parents, he wouldn’t have written an open letter, but a private one. He’s angry, and at some level wants to tell the world why while shaming his parents. Writing “Have you no shame?” in a public letter is not a recommended tactic for softening hearts of granite.

7. The letter presents itself as an offer of reconciliation, but it isn’t. It’s a kiss-off. “Admit you are wrong to the world, and I forgive you,”  it says. There’s nothing magnanimous or forgiving in that. Thus the entire thing is a self-aggrandizing and self-justifying indulgence. Patrick might as well have written an open letter beginning, “Dear Mom and Dad: I’ve been seething since you were so cruel to me, and let me tell you what I think of you and your biases.” That would have been honest.

8. Patrick can sleep because he finally, in his own passive-aggressive way, told his parents to fuck off. I don’t blame him, for they deserve it, but the “Best Intentions” closing is too much to bear. This letter isn’t an offer to clean the slate, or a sincere expression that “No matter how wretchedly you treat me and my spouse, I am still your son, and will always love you. I will continue to hope that you will see the terrible mistake you have made and the injustice you are pursuing, so we can all be a family again.” Those would be best intentions. Sending the letter only to his parents and not to a magazine whose readership will unanimously heap abuse on them would demonstrate best intentions.

9. The Out introduction to the letter begins,

“As the world moves forward on the subject of gay marriage, it’s especially painful when some parents refuse to do so, citing their biblical beliefs as an excuse for not supporting their child’s legal and loving step into wedlock.”

There’s the trivialization of religion bias. Religion isn’t necessarily an excuse to reject gay marriage; in fact, I would bet that when parents do what Patrick’s parents did, it is out of sincere religious belief, just as in Tevye’s case. It’s just easier for gays to hate bigots than to hate misguided religious zealots, so all religious zealots are secret bigots to them.

Unfair and untrue.

This is a family tragedy with deep wounds bleeding all over. I hope Patrick can sleep; he deserves closure, at least for now.

There is still time for a happy ending, at least a muted one.

Just like in “Fiddler on the Roof.”