On Being a Gay Parent, Continued

In 2007, my book On Being a Gay Parent was published by Church Publishing Book. I wrote the book because I could not find any similar books to read as I was making my way through the new terrain of being an out gay parent to two wonderful, ornery, fun, challenging, growing children. I was parenting with my then-partner, along with their mom in Chapel Hill, NC. All three of us chose to live in the same place in order to be parents to the children, rather than being a plane-flight-away kind of parent. This choice came with sacrifices in terms of employment for me, but it was the right choice in hindsight.

The book On Being a Gay Parent was also a response to the work that Dan Savage was doing in Seattle, with his husband, who were raising a child. Dan is a self-confessed former-Irish Catholic, and had strong feelings about the Church. I wanted to present a story that was more pro-faith, pro-community, though my challenges with the institutional church were and are always front and present in terms of being an out gay Presbyterian pastor. 

Zoom ahead fourteen years. Recently it was announced that there would be gay dads and their child as regulars on Sesame Street. This news, and their presence, on an internationally recognized television show for children and their families is truly significant, and a great help to "normalizing" LGBTQIA+ parents in our world and society. When Sesame Street shows us children of color, children with disabilities, and children who are living with HIV/AIDS, we know that the aim of the producer is to normalize those of us who are somewhat "different" in other parts of public life. 

But less we get too excited and happy, I was also reminded of the constant challenges to LGBTQIA+ parenting in the recent Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) decision, in which Catholic Social Services, alone, could discriminate against LGBTQIA+ adults from providing foster care with and through the city of Philadelphia. Catholic Social Services can still work with the city of Philadelphia, even though it can continue to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ adults. For more information, go to: https://www.advocate.com/news/2021/6/17/what-supreme-court-ruling-foster-care-means-lgbtq-parents.

Here's the rub. On Fathers' Day I celebrated the day with my grown adult children and our granddaughter. I lifted up dads and wannabe dads, and dads and their children who struggled in being dads in worship that day. Even with the advance of the presence of two gay dads on Sesame Street, we gay dads, and other LGBTQIA+ parents, are still threatened from doing the work we were called to do: to be parents, and love the children in our lives. Do non-LGBTQIA+ parents worry about their rights of being parents taken away by religious institutions? Do non-LGBTQIA+ parents rejoice because their families are finally given a spot on Sesame Street? Of course not. The only one whose parenting is constantly judged and assessed as "less than normal" and easily discriminated against by religious institutions and society are LGBTQIA+ parents. 

My hope, currently, is that the equality laws that are coming through US Congress can mitigate some of this discrimination and bias. But we aren't there yet. Not by a long shot.

Being a gay parent is one of the best gifts, and a high call, which I gladly received. My hope, as a pioneer of sorts, is to make that possible for the following generation of LGBTQIA+ parents and our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren.

May it be so.