"You'd see people that were completely happy in the middle of this festival and then they'd see that 'free dad' shirt and it was like a switch was flipped."Īfter Dittman's actions were shared online, the father urged parents of LGBTQ children to accept their loved ones. "I went on Amazon Prime and ordered a shirt and went down on Sunday just to try to put a smile on people's faces," Dittman told KDKA. In June, Scott "Howie" Dittman (not pictured) attended Pittsburgh Pride wearing a T-shirt that read "free dad hugs." At the end of the day, he had given out over 700 hugs to strangers at the event. I feel like if there was a little more compassion in this world, then the world will be a little bit the nicer place to live in."Ī dad (not pictured) offered hugs at Pride. I think it's important for people to see that we're all human beings and we all just want to be treated just like everyone else. "You love someone one day and just because they come out doesn't mean that they are any different the next day, so you love them just the same. When she posted the exchange on Facebook, the post was liked by thousands. The anonymous woman then thanked Coley and hung up. "I think that you should just make sure he knows that you love and accept ," Coley told her. The woman asked, "What was the one thing you wanted from your parents when you came out?" Coley said the woman on the other end told her that her son had just come out, and she needed some advice. In 2018, Kara Coley was bartending at Sipps, an LGBTQ-friendly bar in Mississippi, when she got a strange phone call. The loving post went viral with over 3,000 posts giving encouragement and advice. Or is that not a good idea? Am I better off leaving it alone and waiting until they tell me themselves, if they ever do? I obviously don't want to force either of them out of the closet, but at the same time I hate feeling as if they feel like they're being forced into the closet in my house. The letter continues: "What I want advice on is this how do I let my son and his boyfriend know that I'm okay with them being a couple and they don't have to feel like they have to sneak around in my house? I want them to be comfortable here and I want them to know I support them both no matter what. "Somehow I of all people was bestowed with the honour of watching him grow from a sweet young boy to the greatest man I have ever known. "He's everything a man could want his son to be he's uniquely kind and fiercely loyal, he's unflinchingly brave, he's incredibly generous and, despite the horrors he suffered as a child, he's unfailingly positive and sunny to the last, " the father wrote in the letter. In a post on Reddit, the father asked the community how he could tell his son that he knows he is gay and that he is OK with it. Over the first few weeks of the lockdown, the father realized his son and the friend were actually a couple when he caught them sleeping in the same bed together.
![lesbian gay bar pittsburgh lesbian gay bar pittsburgh](https://irs1.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/1350508_nGGjzCfBViaJZwvlqFuiyk_dDVfeMRqs1zAnmA4Vwyc.jpg)
The son also brought along a friend to quarantine, too. When the coronavirus lockdown went into effect earlier this year, an unidentified father allowed his 20-year-old son to quarantine at his house, according to his post on Reddit.