The parent of a gay child can lose that child in many ways. Matthew Shepard, a gay man, was beaten to death by homophobes. That's the worst way to lose a child.

But parents who reject their child's sexual orientation will also lose him or her. You don't have to kick your child out of the house and refuse to see her, to lose her. She doesn't have to run away from an unloving home or commit suicide (the suicide rate among gay teens is far higher than among straight ones) for you to lose her.

If you react to your child with shock, rage, disappointment, moral judgment or coldness when she tells you she's gay, she may never bring it up again -- but she won't stop being gay. And she won't tell you who she loves, or what is in her heart, and eventually she'll stop telling you what's real and true in her life.

If she takes your message to heart and hates herself for being gay, she'll lose herself -- and you, too, will have lost her.