VIDEO: Iowa Grandmother Defends Her Son’s Freedom to Marry

By support
Feb 14, 2011 at 04:39 pm

Pushed on by the recent attempts to pass an anti-marriage amendment in Iowa, and inspired by the testimony of 19-year-old Zach Wahls at the legislature, an 80-year woman decided to make a video of her own. She did it with a little help from her gay son, who is married and has been with his partner for 30 years.

The result is a moving picture of her own personal journey from rejection to acceptance. She says in part:

"I wasn't always this broad-minded... My husband and I brought our three children up with the same traditions with which we were raised.  When our son came out to us in 1980 we were stunned, confused, and angry. We blamed ourselves and wondered what we had done wrong as parents. Years later, after the shock wore off and we saw the life our son had created with his future husband Bob, I realized that he's still my son and that in many ways nothing had changed."