Free Mom Hugs debut conference offered hope, hugs to LGBTQ+ allies and advocates

A best-selling author married to one of the nation's first openly gay politicians recently praised an Oklahoma City-based nonprofit for its unequivocal support and celebration of the LGBTQ+ community.

Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, whose spouse Pete Buttigieg is currently U.S. Secretary of Transportation, spoke on Friday at the first-ever Free Mom Hugs Conference, encouraging attendees to continue their advocacy.

"There's a lot of people hurting in our community right now," he said. "As a kid who needed that 'mom hug' at one point, I want to tell you how grateful I am for all of your work, your leadership, your allyship."

Buttigieg also told the crowd not to believe those who spew hate at the anti-LGBTQ+ community because the majority of Americans support LGBTQ+ equality.

"They want you to believe you're the crazy person," he said.

As special guest speaker at the conference held at the Oklahoma City Convention Center, Chasten Buttigieg's humor and forthright manner drew applause, cheers and laughter from a crowd of more than 400 people from across the U.S. who gathered for the three-day event.

Sara Cunningham, 60, famously started the Free Mom Hugs movement in 2015 when she pinned a handmade button with the words "Free Mom Hugs" to her dress and began offering hugs to people attending an Oklahoma City Pride festival.

Cunningham had been on a transformative journey after her son, Parker, came out as gay, and she wanted to offer the love and acceptance of a mom to LGBTQ+ community members. She soon learned that many of the people she met had been spurned by their loved ones.

Three years later, Cunningham shared a Facebook post about her experiences as a Christian mother seeking to share love and acceptance for the LGBTQ+ community in a conservative state like Oklahoma, and the post went viral. She went on to be a "stand in" mom at LGBTQ+ weddings when couples' parents refused to participate. Shortly afterward, Free Mom Hugs was established as a nonprofit, and there are currently chapters in all 50 states and in some countries around the globe.

Fittingly, Cunningham was the first speaker at the conference which began on Thursday and continued through Saturday.

"You're our Momma and we love you," one attendee yelled with enthusiasm after Cunningham admitted to feeling a bit nervous.

Cunningham smiled and went on to talk about all of the women and men she has met over the years who have joined her as allies and advocates for the LGBTQ+ community.

"We are moms, dads, neighbors and friends fighting for acceptance and love," she said.

"I woke up this morning looking for hope and here you are."

Organizers say Bible Belt states best place to hold LGBTQ-supporting conferences

Katrina Kalb, the event's emcee, likened the conference to a gathering of relatives. She admitted that she was moved to tears by the enthusiasm of the crowd for the event, themed "Love Revolution."

"I am an only child and this is one heck of a family reunion," she said.

More than once, conference speakers made special note of the fact that the conference was being held in Oklahoma, a Bible Belt state where anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments are commonly expressed from the church house to the statehouse — and notably state lawmakers recently passed a slew of anti-transgender legislation.

But Cunningham and other leaders who spoke at general and breakout sessions said such a state was exactly where the first-ever Free Mom Hugs Conference should take place, for more advocacy and hopefully to draw people who are curious and ready to view the LGBTQ+ community and related issues with open minds and open hearts.

Kalb said Oklahoma City was the right place for the inaugural conference because it was Cunningham's birthplace, where Parker Cunningham came out to his mom as gay and where the first Free Mom Hugs button was made.

"And we had to bring all of this love here to counteract all of that hate legislation," Kalb said.

Mama Bears, OKC mayor, clergy among conference speakers

The conference brought together a variety of speakers, including:

∎ Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt welcomed the crowd via video, saying that he was out of town but he wanted to address the crowd in some way. Holt said he was the first mayor to declare Pride Month in Oklahoma City and he was honored to be the city's first mayor to participate in the Oklahoma City Pride Parade.

∎ Mama Bears Founder Liz Dyer was a popular guest speaker who told attendees said she wouldn't have missed the first-ever Free Mom Hugs event "for anything." Dyer said she has a gay child and she started Mama Bears as a private online Facebook group with 150 moms. Mama Bears now includes more than 37,000 moms of LGBTQ+ children, conference organizers said. Dyer said she remembered Cunningham joining the group and she loved that their two groups currently work" hand in hand" through advocacy. She ended her talk by proclaiming Cunningham as "Mama Bear Extraordinaire" and presented the Free Mom Hugs founder with several items with her newfound title emblazoned on them.

∎ Several speakers came from faith backgrounds or were members of the clergy and Cunningham said that although Free Mom Hugs is not a faith-based organization, faith can't be ignored in the conversations taking place at the conference because faith and spiritual belief systems have often been a source of LGBTQ+ bigotry. "How can we not talk about the very thing that has caused so much harm?" she said.

∎ Cunningham interviewed her son during a poignant conversation that was filled with humor but also a few tears. Parker Cunningham said he became an atheist at one point because he had been told that he couldn't be a Christian and be gay. He said he was touched by the conference attendees' love and support for Free Mom Hugs and the LGBTQ+ community. "Earlier, I was walking around crying because ya'll are here. Ya'll are here ― in Oklahoma!" he told the crowd.

Buttigieg: supporting youth necessary 'to keep each other alive'

Chasten Buttigieg stepped into the hug celebration and seemed to fit right in.

On tour for his memoir "I Have Something To Tell You," and a book of the same name geared for young people, he shared insights from his experiences growing up as a youth afraid to tell his family and others that he was gay.

Catapulted into the national spotlight when his husband made a bid for the nation's highest elected office in 2020, Chasten Buttigieg, a teacher, said he knew firsthand how important support from advocacy groups like Free Moms Hugs can be for LGBTQ+ youths and adults who not only face bigotry and misunderstanding from the community at large but also from people closest to them.

Buttigieg said his current priorities are to keep his family safe and travel around the country to share his story and offer encouragement to people in the LGBTQ+ community and their allies. He said he wrote the book geared for young readers for several reasons.

"I just wanted to write the book I wish I would have had when I was in middle school, but also I wanted to write the book I wish my parents had had," he said.

The author was quick to emphasize that his parents were good to him, they just had no idea about his struggles to fit into a society that wasn't accepting of gay people.

"I was just beating myself up, hating myself, thinking that world wasn't ready for someone like me," he said.

He said he finds a way to get to "redder places" in the country that are similar to where he grew up because there's an urgency to share his message there.

He offered some advice to the conference crowd, noting that young people seem advocating for themselves these days, fighting everything from book bans to "draconian laws" and "to keep each other alive." Young people, he said, especially in rural America, keep fighting bigotry that attacks their "humanity and identity."

"Young people give me so much hope," Buttigieg said.

The author said he plans to write a book for children who have "two dads or two moms" because he realized there weren't many books like that for children like his own.

One of the event organizers asked Buttigieg to tell attendees an anecdote that he had shared with them earlier in the day.

His comments seemed to encapsulate the conference's overall message and the premise of Free Mom Hugs. He said he was asked by someone at his hotel what brought him to Oklahoma City. When he said he was speaking at the Free Mom Hugs conference, the other hotel guest asked him what Free Mom Hugs was all about because he'd seen signage around the convention center but he knew nothing about the organization.

Buttigieg said he was tired from his trip to the city and could only think of one answer off the cuff.

"I said 'It's just a bunch of moms trying to keep queer people alive," he said, drawing applause and cheers from the conference crowd.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Free Mom Hugs Conference debuts in OKC with hope, hugs