Oral Roberts's Grandson: It Gets Better

The grandson of antigay televangelist Oral Roberts has a message for “my people — homosexuals.” It gets better.

Randy Robert Potts (pictured), a former middle school English teacher now pursuing a career as a writer, says in a column and accompanying video for The Washington Post that his grandfather “and most of his generation” describe gay people “as an abomination.”

In the video, Potts talks about his uncle Ronald David Roberts. Ronald came out to his father in high school. According to Potts, Oral Roberts “did not want a gay son,” and when Ronald was in his 30s, six months after getting a divorce, he shot and killed himself.

Potts says that his mother, like her father, does not want a gay son. At his grandfather’s funeral just last year, Potts says his mother told him that “hell does exist, and I’m going there.”

In the years since coming out, Potts says he’s lived in fear of losing his children because he’s gay. He says he even considered suicide, but with help and time, it got better.

Watch Potts’s video below and read his Washington Post column here.