Can I Lie to My Father About Being Gay So He Will Pay for My College Education?; New York Times, 9/2/15

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Amy Bloom, Kenji Yoshino, The Ethicists, New York Times; Can I Lie to My Father About Being Gay So He Will Pay for My College Education? :

"I am a young gay man in college. My father generously pays for my tuition and rent. The problem is that he does not know I am gay. He has made it very clear that if I were, he would not only withdraw all financial support but also cast himself entirely out of my life. His suspicion arose in high school when he found love letters between me and another male student. I swore they were meaningless and have since been defending my heterosexuality. Questions about my sexuality are inevitable whenever I come home. My father has demanded I produce archives of all emails and text messages for him to review, although I have successfully refused these requests on the grounds that he has no claim to my adult communications. Is it ethical for me to continue accepting financial support for my education and my career that will come from it? Could I continue to lie to accept the support and one day disclose my sexuality and pay him back to absolve myself of any ethical wrongdoing? NAME WITHHELD...

Kenji Yoshino: Yes, I agree with both of you. The father is behaving unethically, given that his support is accompanied by the demand that the letter writer change something that is not susceptible to change. So the question is how to conduct yourself ethically when a person with power over you is not doing so.

I do have a concrete answer here. I would encourage the letter writer to contact the Point Foundation. The foundation was created in 2001 to offer educational scholarships to L.G.B.T.Q. students, who are doing well in school, precisely to deal with this kind of situation. In a sense, the organization has ethically anticipated the letter writer’s dilemma."