This ‘redneck’ father gave some amazing advice to his gay son

This animation tells the real story of a ‘redneck’ dairy farmer who gave his gay son some important advice in the 1950s.

US documentary makers StoryCorps released a clip focussing on coming out for National Coming Out Day, in collaboration with the It Gets Better campaign.

It tells the story of Patrick Haggerty grew up the son of a dairy farmer in rural Dry Creek, Washington, during the 1950s.

He thought he was hiding his sexuality from his father – but soon learned his dad could see him much more clearly than he realized, after he was caught avoiding his dungarees-wearing father before a school assembly.

Pat recalled: “In the car after, my father says to me, ‘I was walking down the hall this morning and I saw a kid who looked just like you hiding to avoid his dad – but I know it wasn’t you because you, because you would never do that to your dad’.

“I said, ‘dad… did you have to wear your cow-crap jeans to my assembly?’.

“He said ‘look, everybody knows I’m a dairy farmer, this is who I am… now how about you?

“When you’re a full-grown man, who are you going to go out with at night?’ I said, I don’t know.”

“He said, I’m going to tell you something today, and you might not know what to think of it now, but you’re going to remember it when you’re an adult.

“Don’t sneak, because if you sneak, like you did today, it means you think you’re doing the wrong thing.

“If you’re spending your whole life thinking that you’re doing the wrong thing, then you’ll ruin your immortal soul.”

• Dec 31 2024

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