Wow what a horrible father.

@bold. I would doubt a parent would make such a drastic decision in hopes of persuading the other party. If that were the case it would be completely stupid. There is no risk-reward thing to play on with your children...

About blissful ignorance, maybe not. Maybe the parent wanted the reality, and wants to live separately in that reality, rather than live a lie together. We can't tell from the letter, but what we can tell is that the parent thought this through and made a bleeding decision.

yet another fully horrible example as to WHY I hate religion at its core.

If there was a reply, it could go something like this:

Father:
Under normal circumstances, a son is supposed to feel immense hurt by you writing this. I understand in your mind, you think you will change my ways by disowning me. But, reality is, what you did is not normal circumstances, so I now realize what you are. As it is now, I have considered my father had died recently. It is shame that I was never able to have more good times, but I have no control over someone being dead to me.

I will speak to mother when I can, and ask where your grave is, so I can leave flowers. I wish you well in your afterlife. I hope it isn't too warm there.

And with that, it is done.  Maybe the father changes his mind, but you account your father as lost in this situation, and that would be the last thing he ever hears from you.  His father would realize, hopefully fully, what he did by writing that first letter, and how he is incapable of moving on or maintaing anything like a normal relationship.  You realize who your father is, and your father should realize what he said.  Sometimes things get permanently damaged and aren't repairable.

A real life hot lesbian and you can't enjoy it for obvious reasons, I'm sorry for your.....loss?

If that were the case, I'm sure a lot of people would question his paternal instincts. Is this any different from say, the deadbeat parents who leave their children with bruises, without any shred of remorse for what they did whatsoever? I'll give you a hint: there is only one difference; one is physical damage, the other is emotional damage, both inflicted by what many would consider, neglectful parents.

On a side note, I really hope that this turns out to be a spur of the moment, and father does talk with his son eventually. Otherwise, i can see a lot of regret on the father's deathbed, of living a life and throwing away all that precious time through ignorant negligence, that could have been spent with his own son.

1.) 

Fair enough, I must have misunderstood you. You said you admired his feelings, I assumed you admired his abandonment as well.  My mistake. I see now that you only admire the feelings behind his abadonment. Personally, I don't see how that makes sense; I don't see how you can distinguish the two, but to each their own I suppose. 

b.) I don't know much about the NNO, but from reading that Wikipedia page, I do not believe the the NNO and homosexuality are comparable. From what I have read, the NNO group exercises racism and xenophobia. While homosexuality is the mere attraction to same-gender humans. I don't think the two are similar.

For your question, it really depends on what you mean by 'participating in'. If by 'participating in', you mean harming any person solely because of their race or nationality, then it is fair to abandon them. Because the NNO participant's actions are causing harm onto others simply because of how/where they were born. However, if you mean simply disliking a certain race or nationality, but NOT harming or insulting anyone in ANY way for their race/nationality, then I don't think it's fair to abandon that person. (Ex. My grandpa dislikes Chinese people for whatever reason, but he doesn't try to harm them and he doesn't insult them. I don't think I should abandon him for how he feels)

2.) Yeah, I get it now.

b.) I was not trying to say abadonment is wrong no matter what. I was trying to say that abandonment is wrong in cases like this - where the son is not harming anyone. I wanted you to defend point 1 because I thought you admired the father's abandonment. But now I see you only admire the feelings behind the father's abandonment.

I would doubt it, since according to OP 5 years after the letter the son published it on the internet. He wouldn't do that if they had come back together unless the father consented to it. I would be surprised. Possible but unlikely, who knows.

The case of the deadbeat parents, you mean parents beating their children when they do something wrong? I'm not sure I follow you.

I think we see eye to eye. I don't know how I feel about his actions and if I form an opinion on it I'll let you know. As it is I'm not fully opposed to it but I could be wrong.

Sometimes it can take years for one party to admit they were wrong. The onset of time will only make this decision hurt more in the long run.

Careful there. By that analogy, you're considering that being gay is something wrong and punishable ;) . I'm talking about parents who beat their kids for no reason at all, other than being kids.