Your story reminds me that many experts believe that one positive side effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic resulted from a widespread, almost involuntary coming-out among gay men with the virus.

Many men like me who had fled the heartland in order to come out safely returned when they became ill and needed support from close family.

Not everyone could return, and those of us who remained did our best to take care of those who were ill and couldn't count on family. But still and all, a sort of reverse migration did happen, and coming out often went with it.

And while that obviously didn't always have a positive effect, parents do tend to fiercely love their children. Siblings do tend to be loyal to one another, although obviously not all the time.

So families had to do a lot of hard thinking and reconciling of their values. A lot of people had to rethink their reflexive hatred of homosexuality.

Many people believe it's this rethinking, caused by so much coming out, that helped turn public sentiment in favor of same-sex marriage not long after the worst of the HIV crisis had subsided.

I'm sure the actual situation is more complex than that, but I think there's truth to the thinking. And that's quite a ripple in the pond!