During the Milwaukee Common Council conversion therapy ban for minors hearing, conversion therapy supporters screamed, “Two men can’t make babies; two women can’t make babies.” It was as if the physical process of procreation not only defined the parameters of parenthood but qualified child abuse. It was a chilling display of ignorance.
Later, in a supermarket parking lot, I ran into a couple of friends, a married lesbian couple with their two toddlers in car seats. It was the ultimate vignette of domestic life. It reminded me of the time someone remarked to me “There are no accidental LGBTQ families.” It’s true. I know this couple’s story. Having children was their dream but it wasn’t easy.
For same-sex couples the options for establishing a family are always more complicated and certainly much more expensive than for what Republicans call “traditional families” (read those created by heterosexual copulation, responsible or not, for better or worse). Vocabulary, from adoption, artificial insemination and gestational surrogacy to anonymous donors and fertility clinics, as well as a slew of abbreviations like IUI, become household words. The adoption business (and that’s what it is, bottom-line and all) routinely sells babies on a price scale that reflects their desirability. Boys are more expensive than girls and Caucasian children are more expensive than those of color. It’s a matter of supply and demand. One way or the other, these children have been discarded by their biological parents. (A friend of mine just turned 26…barely. A product of such a scenario and the foster system, he was kicked out of his home when he no longer provided his foster family a revenue stream. He survived but not without scars. He attempted suicide earlier this year. However, with the support of his “logical family” of his LGBTQ support network, he has managed to persevere regardless.)
Some states, mainly Bible Belt ones, allow adoption agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ families and reject their applications to adopt. In other words, they’ll deny a loving couple the right to adopt in the name of a contrived (read evangelical) moral imperative rather than give a child the right to a family. The irony cannot be lost on anyone with a shred of love and compassion in their hearts.
And once the child arrives, one way or the other, the real fun begins. Having added “same-sex parents” to the equation, beyond the quotidian needs of child rearing, there are still more challenges: finding understanding health care providers, welcoming schools, supportive religious communities, etc., etc., etc. And, there are myriad legal, emotional and psychological hurdles at every turn. Imagine the stress of driving through a state with religion exemption laws where, should an accident happen, a health care provider might deny treatment because his or her religious convictions trump the Hippocratic Oath. This is the American reality today.
Meanwhile, I doubt there are any documented cases of kids being aborted by their same-sex parents or being kicked out of their same-sex parented homes for being straight, either.
So, for Father’s Day, acknowledge the loving LGBTQ families in your lives. Our society is definitely strengthened because of them.
