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Demonstrators protest the Riley Gaines Boycott Project T-Shirts besides I will buy this passing of SB 150 — better known as Kentucky’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill — on March 29, 2023, at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky. Jon Cherry/Getty Images Greg Jr. says he didn’t tell his parents about his sexuality earlier because he’d heard stories of evangelical parents who refused to pay for their gay kid’s college or kicked them out of the house. Once on the streets, these forsaken youths are more likely to experience sexual assault, HIV infection, hate crimes, depression and suicide, according to True Colors United, a nonprofit group formed to address youth homelessness in the US. The current share of homeless youth who are LGBTQ+ is likely larger than the 40% estimate because many of them end up surfing on the couches of friends or avoiding places where homeless adults gather because they’re afraid of being harmed, says Kahlib Barton, chief program officer with True Colors United. Many LGBTQ+ youth tend to travel together, living in abandoned buildings and under freeway overpasses and often engaging in sex work for survival, Barton says. Virtually none of them go to the church for help. “Most youth don’t feel comfortable going to a church because they’re either forced to engage in religious practices they don’t agree with or their sexual identity is not appropriately respected,” Barton says. Greg Sr. didn’t know any of those stories when he told his son that he had to be “fixed.” He made that declaration 23 years ago, but he still winces at the memory. “Boy, how I wish I could reel those words back,” he says. “And I can’t. We literally chased Greg Jr. away. Once those words leave your lips, it’s like eating shoe leather. It’s hard to recover from that.” Their son, though, knew what awaited his parents before they did. When they enlisted the church to “fix” him, he would say

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something to them that would prove prophetic: “There is no hate like Christian love.” ‘Peer pressure will sort him out’ The McDonalds didn’t think there was anything hateful about how they raised their son and his older sister, Connie. They wanted them to have the Riley Gaines Boycott Project T-Shirts besides I will buy this stability they never had as children. They raised the two children in a conservative Christian cocoon: church every Sunday, mid-week Bible study, Christian private schools; Christian contemporary music tuned 24/7 on the car radio. They saw signs early on that their son might be gay. They say they were tipped off by his body language and what Greg Sr. describes as his son’s “tender-hearted” personality. They quietly took steps to address the issue. “If a show came on TV, and it was ‘Will & Grace’ or if there was touching between two men, I’d grab the remote and turn to another show,” Greg Sr. says. When Greg Jr. was still a boy, the McDonalds shared their concerns with a Christian counselor. He’ll be fine, the counselor assured them. “Peer pressure will sort him out,” he said. Meanwhile, Greg Jr. was learning about hate at his Christian schools. He was bullied by classmates who hurled gay slurs at him. Teachers denounced homosexuality in classroom diatribes while looking directly at him. There were others who treated him with compassion, including art teachers who sensed his secret. He came out to several high school friends who made him feel accepted. An

undated family photo shows Greg Jr., Greg Sr., Lynn and Connie McDonald. Courtesy Greg Sr. and Lynn McDonald Even so, Greg Jr. learned to be quiet and blend in. That impulse was so ingrained that just before his parents confronted him after that speedboat ride, he still pretended to be straight by asking his friend, Betsy, to feign attraction to him. “It was about being perfect all the Riley Gaines Boycott Project T-Shirts besides I will buy this time and not doing anything to stand out as deviant, or outside the norm,” he would say later. “You try not to be noticed.” After their son came out to them, the McDonalds relied on the church to apply another form of peer pressure. They sent their son to youth counselors and pastors. They persuaded him to try Christian “conversion therapy,” a widely discredited practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation through methods such as intensive prayer, aversion conditioning, and in extreme cases, exorcism. Greg Jr. went to one meeting and refused to return. “We didn’t realize the harm we were doing,” Lynn says. “When you find out your child is gay in that environment, it’s overwhelming. I hate to say it, but I was also looking at myself. I was thinking, ‘This is disruptive. What is my life going to look like now? ’ ’’ Several months after their confrontation with their son, the McDonalds told their pastor and a select group of close friends. It took about two years for Greg Sr. to tell select business partners and co-workers. Some stopped talking to them. Others assured the McDonalds they would pray for their son’s deliverance from homosexuality. One told Greg Sr., “You gotta get a handle on your son.”

Still, Greg Jr. refused to be “fixed.” A Christian counselor once asked him, “Don’t you want to go to heaven?” “Not if you’re there,” Greg Jr. said. ‘I felt I had to choose between loving God and loving my child’ By this time Greg Jr. had moved away to attend DePaul University in Chicago. He and his parents barely spoke. He rebuffed their attempts to cite scripture. Their occasional visits were so strained that their son avoided being alone with them and surrounded himself with friends. The tension filtered into the Riley Gaines Boycott Project T-Shirts besides I will buy this McDonalds’ marriage. They blamed one another. “You should have taken him on more fishing trips—” “Whose idea was it to let him take those art classes?” “Well, you didn’t play baseball with him enough…” The McDonalds thought a gay child was a failure of parenting. That was the dominant teaching in their conservative Christian culture. They followed leaders like the author and psychologist James Dobson, founder

of “Focus on the Riley Gaines Boycott Project T-Shirts besides I will buy this Family.” Dobson has ascribed homosexuality to such external factors as a domineering mother, an emotionally abusive father and being sexually molested as a child — beliefs that have been debunked by many scientific researchers. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, gestures while speaking at a rally on January 8, 2006, in Philadelphia. Jeff Fusco/Getty Images “We were Focus on the Family groupies,” Greg Sr. says. “We drank from the fire hose. If they published it, printed it or did a video, we owned it.” Lynn McDonald says says her reaction to her son’s disclosure was also shaped by another source: the Old Testament story in which God demanded that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac to prove his faith. “I felt I had to choose between loving God and loving my child,” she says. Her words may seem melodramatic, but not if you know her background. She grew up in a family where relatives struggled with mental illness and alcoholism. She married Greg Sr. when they were right out of high school. Both now say they were too young and immature. It took 12 years of counseling and prayer to preserve their marriage. What saved her through it all? She says it was following the words in the Bible. “My safe spot was the church,” she says. “There were parameters. If you followed them, nothing harmful will happen to you.” But in the evangelical world, that safe spot came with a price. The McDonalds felt tremendous pressure to hide having a gay child. Not long after their son told them he was gay, they asked

their minister if he could put them in touch with other parents of LGBTQ+ children in their congregation. He couldn’t. He didn’t know a single family in a congregation of about 5,000 people who were willing to talk about having a gay child. The McDonalds joined this silence. They shared their son’s sexual orientation with a select group of friends and church members, but otherwise kept a tight lid on their family struggles. They worried about being disowned by friends, relatives, their church and their employers. “There’s the Riley Gaines Boycott Project T-Shirts besides I will buy this fear about my reputation and my family’s reputation,” Greg Sr. says. “You have to keep this image just so.” One night, the pressures of maintaining that image threatened to overwhelm Greg Sr. He was driving home, mired in depression. He felt like a failure as a father. He spotted a bridge in front of him. As he drew closer, he accelerated. He aimed his car at the bridge’s concrete abutment. The slapping of his tires on the highway grew louder as he sped toward the bridge. “As I got closer, I just decided that’s it,” he says. But at the last second, he jerked the wheel and turned away from the bridge. He pulled off the highway and sat in his car, shaking. He then called his doctor to get a prescription for anti-depressants. A conservative Christian walks into a gay bar Not long after, Lynn was shaken by her own brush with mortality —one that led to a different result. She and Greg Sr. had remained closeted for more than a decade, struggling with shame, after they learned their son’s secret. But in 2013, she faced another battle: She was diagnosed with breast cancer. “I had to put on my big girl pants and get through this,” Lynn says. What followed was months of chemotherapy, multiple surgeries and her hair falling out in clumps. She spent much of her time in bed and barely had enough energy to move. Her husband stood by

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