I found a couple parents who are upset about having a lesbian or gay parent while in a heterosexual marriage (eg, Dawn Stefanowicz and Jakii Edwards). But I have not found any upset children raised in a lesbian or gay marriage. This is good evidence that the best thing for children is for lesbians and gays to marry according to their sexual orientation.

Last month, I had to post this blog entry. The girl loves hockey, both playing and watching; she is also crazy about NASCAR. You’d think she grew up around me and my friends. She dreams of being the first woman to win the Stanley Cup. Her homophobic maternal grandmother really disapproves of all these things, as we found out. Her stepfather advised her to tell the grandmother about her ardent crushes on certain male athletes, and the girl picked up on the reason rather quickly–”Because that means I’m not gay, too.” Our hearts pretty much broke in a thousand places that night.

This child was conceived by a bisexual man in love with–married to–a straight woman. There was no adoption, no “trophy” of any kind. (And I get really upset, too, when people who claim to be pro-life condemn adoption by any loving, responsible adult.) She can quickly and clearly tell the story to a teacher or any other interested adult: “My Ma and Da used to love each other, but they fought a lot. They had to get a divorce because they drove each other crazy. Da moved in with [name redacted], who was one of his best friends. They fell in love. They got married, and now [name redacted]’s my stepdad. I live with Ma during the week and Da and my stepdad on weekends.”

This little girl knows what’s going on, but it’s amazing how adults are willfully ignorant about it. They’ll try to dismiss her dad’s bisexuality (“But Da likes ladies and he used to love my Ma”), or they’ll tell her how sorry they feel for her. One parent has even decided that a friend could no longer hang out with her anymore, and this is in New York City!

I am so grateful for organizations like COLAGE and advocates like Abigail Garner, and I don’t even (won’t even) have any children of my own. My brother and I spent most of our childhoods being raised by a widowed mother. So we were often written off by “good”, “pro-family” Christians as being tragedies in the making, too. We wanted to make the people who expressed misplaced “concern” for us see reality so badly. We wanted them to see *us*. Now I want them to see a little girl who loves cats and wears green to support the Iranian protestors and makes a child in her bowling league cry by telling him that “if you aren’t here to win, you’re just taking up space.” She’s a lot of things, but not a tragedy or a trophy or a monument to her fathers’ selfishness. I see that as a bi woman. So why are our enemies allowed to wear the “pro-family” mantle again?

I see lots of documentaries at OutFest about gay headed families. It’s very difficult not to watch “All Aboard-The R Cruise” produced by Rosie and Kellie O’Donnell about the first ever family cruise for gay parents.

I recommend it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. It was released in 2004.
I could watch it over and over again and I couldn’t get over how sweet and beautiful and diverse all the kids were.

In my own experience, most of my friends have children who don’t match them ethnically. These are homes that don’t have gender expectations but let the kids be individual in their expression. Some of the kids have developmental issues or HIV or disabilities and the other kids are raised to be patient and support their siblings who have these issues.

Let me say in short, these are homes without sexism, racism, homophobia, phobias about disabilities. I know a future without those things should be a happy one.

I remember saying so to a very anti gay devout woman and know what she said ?: “It’s SO immoral for children to grow up like that!”

Of course a world without stupid would be good too.

If a child know another with two moms or dads, what do their parents do? Make that home radioactive to themselves AND their child, sending the message that such a family isn’t to be seen or known or (gasp!) actually liked!

I know so many gay and lesbians parents and I still scratch my head at the critics and think ‘do they even KNOW any gay parents?’

The critics would rather talk about the issue without any actual experience.

One young woman (just ONE), keeps getting pulled out as the spokesface of gay parents.
She wrote a book about how her father exposed her to her father’s sexual activity and many lovers and so on.

Now, I usually have to qualify someone who is a COMMERCIALLY anti gay parent.

1. Is their any corroboration regarding her father’s behavior?

2. Has she ever heard of OTHER gay parents who never and wouldn’t do such a thing to their children. And has she heard of all the heterosexual parents who are just as bad as her father is supposed to have been?

3. So if blatant sexually explicit behavior isn’t EXCLUSIVE to either gay or straight parents, shouldn’t hetero parents ALSO be banned from having children without careful government scrutiny and qualifications?

Of course we all know that what we think is casual affection to us, is explicit sexuality to a homophobe.

Therefore, even if this particular woman’s experience is true, she makes it very difficult to believe. But most of all, she shouldn’t be the measure by which all gay parents or potential ones should be judged.