An admirable man, this takes courage and a change of heart for the better

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17. Welcome to DU, nmgaucho!

This really rips one's heart out. Thank you so much for posting it.

This is the kind of fellow who is MASSIVELY needed by states like Alabama, to prove they don't all share a 6th-Century (BC) mindset. His own words confess that he once did feel that way. But then his own precious daughter brought the real world home to him. May she rest in peace. She had to have felt so tortured and misunderstood and isolated in that environment, so badly and deeply that she felt the only way out was taking her own life.

And I feel for her dad, too. What a rotten way to have one's mind opened. He had to lose a child to get there. I cannot even begin to imagine the agony of that.

It just shouldn't have to be that way. For ANYONE.