The story of one courageous grandmother, who reportedly stood up to a church pastor who outed a young gay man, is touching hearts across the Internet.
The story was first posted to social news site Reddit by user BMMiller10. Though the Redditor actually wrote about the incident several months ago, the post only recently rose to the top of the r/lgbt subreddit this week, according to Gay Star News.
The 20-year-old BMMiller10 writes that he wanted to post the story because it made him both happy, sad and proud of his grandmother, who took a public stand against the homophobic preachings of her longtime pastor. Apparently, she had been pretty conservative in the past, but her opinions of the LGBT community began to change after BMMiller10 came out to her.
Here's what happened in her church, according to BMMiller10:
A kid that attends the church and is in high school is gay, and apparently his parents wrote to the pastor asking what should be done about this. The pastor took the letter the parents wrote, and read it to the entire congregation, outed the kid, and told everyone that they would "work together to address this problem of homosexuality."
My grandmother stood up at this point, said "There are a lot of problems here, and him being gay is not one of them." She apologized to the boy, then walked out the door. She just got back from turning in all the stuff she was responsible for for the church's yard sale and Bible School activities.
The young man goes on to say that the pastor was furious at his grandmother, but that she held firm.
Queerty notes that while it may seem like a "small thing" to the Redditor, it's these "small things" that "lead to big changes and BMMiller10 is certainly lucky to have a nana who’ll not only stand up for him, but for others and what she believes in."
This story is in wonderful contrast the stories of other LGBT youth who have come out to family members only to face rejection. In September HuffPost blogger Mikey Rox wrote about such an experience in a blog post, titled "How I Lost My Grandmother to God and Being Gay."
CORRECTION: A previous reference to the pastor reading the note "during Mass" has been removed for lack of evidence as to the church's denomination.