02
| Part 1 | The Reckoning: When Fear Delays Love
Before Free Mom Hugs became a global movement, it was just one mom in Oklahoma, holding a secret she didn’t know how to carry. In this first half of a two-part conversation, Sara Cunningham—founder, author, and affirming mother—opens the door to her earliest struggle: the years she resisted her son’s truth, clinging to a faith that taught her love had limits.
Together, Sara and Jeff look back on the collision between belief and belonging—the nights of prayer, the silence that stretched for years, and the moment a mother realized that “doing the right thing” had cost her time she could never get back.
This is the part of the story where fear delays love. Where theology feels like armor but becomes a cage. Where a mother’s tears mark the beginning of her unlearning.
Part 2, The Redemption, will reveal what happened next—how heartbreak became hope, and how one handmade button sparked a movement that now spans the globe. But first, Part 1 takes us to the moment before the hug, when love was still finding its way out of the closet.
Together, Sara and Jeff look back on the collision between belief and belonging—the nights of prayer, the silence that stretched for years, and the moment a mother realized that “doing the right thing” had cost her time she could never get back.
This is the part of the story where fear delays love. Where theology feels like armor but becomes a cage. Where a mother’s tears mark the beginning of her unlearning.
Part 2, The Redemption, will reveal what happened next—how heartbreak became hope, and how one handmade button sparked a movement that now spans the globe. But first, Part 1 takes us to the moment before the hug, when love was still finding its way out of the closet.
Sara Cunningham is an affirming mother who grew up in a conservative evangelical background and once believed that faith and acceptance couldn’t coexist. When her son came out at a young age, she resisted and delayed affirming him—hoping, praying, and still believing that doing “the right thing” meant withholding love until everything was certain.
Her pivot came quietly, in a moment of painful clarity at an Oklahoma City Pride parade. With a handmade button that read "Free Mom Hugs", Sara offered a hug to any LGBTQ+ person who needed one. That single gesture ignited an idea, and ultimately grew into a global movement.
She is the author of the memoir How We Sleep at Night (available on Amazon), and her story is being brought to the screen in collaboration with Jamie Lee Curtis.
Today she leads the worldwide Free Mom Hugs organization, traveling the country to make appearances, hug families, officiate LGBTQ+ weddings in places where loved ones may have opted not to attend, and model what a global embracetruly looks like.
Sara’s story is proof that love doesn’t shrink, it expands. From a quiet reckoning in her Oklahoma living room to a global embrace spanning parades, pulpits, and pride flags world wide, she continues to show what happens when love chooses courage over comfort, and presence over perfection.
Sara’s story is proof that love doesn’t shrink, it expands. From a quiet reckoning in her Oklahoma living room to a global embrace spanning parades, pulpits, and pride flags world wide, she continues to show what happens when love chooses courage over comfort, and presence over perfection.
Show Notes
Before Free Mom Hugs became a global embrace, it was one mother’s reckoning with fear, faith, and the cost of delay.
In this first half of a two-part conversation, Sara Cunningham—founder of Free Mom Hugs and author of How We Sleep at Night—joins Jeff Click to revisit the years she resisted her son’s truth, convinced that loving him without conditions might cost her faith. Together they trace the blueprint of a conservative evangelical worldview that once taught her that acceptance was sin, and explore what happens when devotion to doctrine eclipses a child’s need for safety and belonging.
They discuss the night Sara’s son came out, the silence that followed, and the moment she realized her faith had built walls where love was meant to live. She shares how years of prayer, fear, and “good intentions” created distance she could never recover, and how one sentence from her son—
“Mom, I’ve sucked it up for 21 years being your son. I need you to suck it up now and be my mom.”
—became the beginning of her return.
In this conversation, they unpack how shame disguised as holiness can fracture families, why silence from church circles deepens isolation, and how fear and ignorance keep both parent and child trapped in parallel closets. Together, they reflect on what it means to move from certainty to compassion, and how losing time can become the catalyst for gaining perspective.
If you’ve ever wrestled between belief and belonging...as a parent, friend, sibling, or co-worker to someone who’s come out...this episode invites you to pause, listen, and consider that love delayed is still love waiting to be born.
In This Conversation You’ll Hear:
The Reckoning | How doing what feels “right” can lead to pain, distance, and years that can’t be reclaimed.
Faith vs. Fear | How a conservative evangelical worldview shaped Sara’s early reactions—and how she began to unlearn them.
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin | Why that phrase became a wedge in her family and a turning point in her theology.
Silence & Isolation | The cost of missed years and what it means to lose an entire adolescence to fear.
Parallel Closets | How Parker came out of his closet—and Sara went into hers.
Presence Over Perfection | Why early affirmation matters more than getting it all right.
The Global Embrace Begins | The seeds of a movement planted in pain that would later circle the globe as Free Mom Hugs.
Faith vs. Fear | How a conservative evangelical worldview shaped Sara’s early reactions—and how she began to unlearn them.
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin | Why that phrase became a wedge in her family and a turning point in her theology.
Silence & Isolation | The cost of missed years and what it means to lose an entire adolescence to fear.
Parallel Closets | How Parker came out of his closet—and Sara went into hers.
Presence Over Perfection | Why early affirmation matters more than getting it all right.
The Global Embrace Begins | The seeds of a movement planted in pain that would later circle the globe as Free Mom Hugs.
If you have an LGBTQ+ someone in your life, this episode offers understanding, humility, and hope. It’s not about replacing faith—it’s about rediscovering it through love.
Next time, in Episode 02, Part 2 | The Redemption: From Heartbreak to a Global Embrace, Jeff and Sara explore how one mother’s pain became purpose, how a handmade button sparked a movement, and how love, when freed from fear, can change the world.
Linkable Mentions
🌐 Free Mom Hugs | The national nonprofit founded by Sara Cunningham that empowers the world to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community through visibility, education, and unconditional love.
📖 How We Sleep at Night: A Mother’s Memoir | Sara’s deeply personal story of faith, loss, and reconciliation.
📸 @saraphrased | Follow Sara Cunningham on Instagram for updates, advocacy, and Free Mom Hugs stories.
💌 Metamorphosis | Jeff’s free 8-week guided email journey toward loving without asterisks.
Keywords
Sara Cunningham interview, Free Mom Hugs founder, How We Sleep at Night book, LGBTQ Christian parents, faith and LGBTQ stories, affirming parenting, conservative evangelical deconstruction, Love Without Asterisks podcast, LGBTQ acceptance Oklahoma, Jeff Click, LGBTQ allyship, affirming families, LGBTQ siblings and friends, LGBTQ faith journey, unconditional love podcast, Christian parents of gay kids, Free Mom Hugs Oklahoma City, LGBTQ advocacy, LGBTQ inclusion in church, global embrace movement.