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Hi, my name’s Elisa Mason and I’m from Seabrook, Texas.

My father was a military guy, he was a West Point graduate, and from West Point he was Army Air Corps and then commissioned Air Force Officer and when he retired, he retired as a Colonel. So he was a very authoritative person. He had a good sense of humor, but when he spoke you listened. And my very first interaction or even probably even first interaction with the word “gay” was whenever my sister was in 9th grade, she became friends with this guy, Chris Mason. She’s friends with him today, 25 years later. And he was out in 9th grade, just knew he was gay very early on, and he and my sister became very fast friends and my father was against it and told my sister that her choice in friendship reflected poorly on her. And my sister, despite the fact that my father was fairly authoritative, really bucked back and said, “No, I’m going to be friends with him. I don’t agree with your views,” and she maintained a friendship with him.

Later in life, we all went to a Lutheran church and our pastor was gay. She was never out but everyone knew that she was gay. And I wondered, because my father liked her a lot and I knew that he respected her as a pastor, and I wondered if he knew she was gay. And one night in conversation I asked him and he said, “Yeah, I know.” And that’s when I knew his views had kind of changed.

I always respected my father. I respected his opinions and I sought his approval, and given the fact that I’ve always had the capacity to be friends with anyone regardless of sexual orientation, race…it would be disappointing if my father hadn’t changed. And it would be hard to deal with the fact if he were a racist, a homophobe, any of those things, it would be really disappointing for me.

It was my father’s 50th West Point reunion, so he and all his classmates were all in their late 70s and early 80s and at the reunion, my mom told me that there were other guys there that were talking about gay marriage and basically saying that they were against it. And it was my father, that my mom says now, stood up and said, “Hey, let’s stop this conversation. We’re all God’s people and they are, too.” And he wasn’t a particularly religious guy, but I think it was his way of defending gay marriage at really a different position than what he had had 30 years before that. And to me, I think it’s a reflection of the fact that people can change. And I think that everyone has the capacity for that. And hopefully more people will.