In the Life: Ep. 1103, "Friends & Family"

on this edition of In The Life a revealing profile of an American hero de gays and lesbians fight invisibility and ignorance columnist Dan Savage talks about parenting we decided to have a kid because I'm allergic to dogs and some Frank Straight From the Heart all this and on this edition of In The Life America's gay and lesbian cultural news [Music] magazine in the life is funded in part by the H vanam ringan Foundation additional support provided by the Gil Foundation William J Resnik and the annual support of in the Life members like you [Music] in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th much has been said about the inspiring life and untimely death of Father Michael judge tonight we profile the celebrated at hero who was a brave fire chaplain a compassionate priest and a steadfast friend to the gay and lesbian Community a picture was the world's introduction to Father Michael judge a snapshot of a man killed in the line of duty moments after the attack on the World Trade Center in an instant his lifeless body blanketed in the dust and debris of Destruction Father Michael became a national hero but as the weeks and months since the terror ATT slip away a more complex portrait of Father Michael is coming to Light Above All Else he was a priest Michael's character was defined very much by his priesthood and being a Franciscan Father Brian Carroll is a fellow frier at St Francis of aisi church in Manhattan the two of them shared a friendship that lasted more than 20 years Michael was a really dear friend of mine and not only a dear friend but uh consider him a role model we' walking down the street and he would hand out money to anybody and by the time we got to a restaurant we didn't have anything to uh spend we couldn't get dinner we'd end up getting a cup of coffee because he would have given everything away as fire chaplain Father Michael also devoted much of his life ministering to New York City's Fire Department his church is directly across the street from one of the firehouses he always had the right thing to say he always put you at ease if you had a problem you could talk to him him and uh he just made our life easier you know I don't know how we're going to replace him many of his friends and colleagues have called him a bridge between communities Father Michael also reached across denominations and forged a strong friendship with Reverend Fanny arikson of New York's Riverside Church I would say he was deep brilliant worried a lot but he was Brave he had a bit of the leprechaun in him and he really understood what Ministry was about since his death we have learned this man's Ministry went far beyond the fire department it extended into the gay lesbian Community many gay newspapers and magazines have profiled Michael judge not only concerning his Outreach but also frankly discussing the Catholic priest's own sexuality trust me he'd probably be delighted to see himself on the front cover of U The Advocate magazine along with all the other hunks that normally filled that page Brendan Fay one of the driving forces behind the gay Irish organization lavender and green would certainly know he and his partner were good friends of Father Michael judge I would say um being gay and being Catholic for many it's a tremendous conflict and I would say for Michael the challenge was not being gay and Catholic the challenge was being honest an acceptance and while father Michael was not out to all people he did openly throw his support behind many gay causes out ofthe Closet thrift shop is a New York City institution the stores profits fund dozens of AIDS organizations across the country Father Michael was a familiar face here both as a customer and a donor very friendly very helpful uh seemed very enthusiastic about the store and um came in I say once every 3 to four months uh once calling ahead happily brought 500 items from a dry cleaners that was closing people were sick or ill he would be the first person at the hospital and that led him uh later on when he returned to New York uh still fairly early on in the AIDS epidemic to uh begin doing some things right here at St Francis uh and start reaching out to folks and he's done that consistently and reverently uh since I've known him up until the day he died one of Father Michael's riskiest moves also serves as one of his defining moments in March 2000 New York City's first Allin inclusive St Patrick's Day Parade took place in Queens and openly embraced gays and lesbians Father Michael helped fund the event and then to the Delight of the organizers he showed up in his cassic marched in the parade and offered a prayer give us good health peace happiness en joy of the parade and a wonderful blessing for the day amen amen there was a wonderful spirit in the parade um but to be honest there was also the booze the screams and as a a Franciscan as a priest he was the focus and target of some of the Boo and the screams that day he had a terrific sense of humor and he'd understand ah Jesus he'd said the height of Madness God help them you know and and in some way that taught me as well don't get too bugged down or don't be overwhelmed with bitterness or anger on October 11th hundreds of people packed a small Chapel in Manhattan for a ceremony called A month's mind in Irish tradition of remembering a loved one through stories exactly one month after their death the lavender and green society organized the event which was filled with people gay and straight who knew Father Judge he was a very affable a very sociable sort of a man and uh he moved in all sorts of circles he always seemed to capture a little bit of you a little essence of you and um he was always one of those people when you sore made you smile many of those touched by Father Michael's death never even knew him including Tom Ryan an openly gay New York City firefighter I had I had heard that he was a gay priest and um I'm an out gay firefighter president of Fireflight EMS and I never wanted to compromise his position with the church and in that and I regret that now that I didn't get to know him and he put himself at risk by revealing himself for example to uh people in the gay community when they needed to have their lives affirmed and speaking in the third person wouldn't do Michael would reveal himself to them and give them the gift of himself and Brian Carroll received that gift Father Michael helped the fellow priest to understand his own sexuality I think Michael embraced that and he taught me to do that to speak to the truth of who I am and I think uh he is definitely uh the most influential person in my life being gay being a priest being a Franciscan and not to compartmentalize that but to try to synthesize that Father Michael wrote a prayer he used to share with others Lord take me where you want me to go let me meet who you want me to meet tell me what you want me to say and keep me out of your way on September 11th it was that faith that led Father Michael downtown after the planes crashed into the Twin Towers I said Mike there's been a disaster uh a plane just hit the World Trade Center I saw it and he jumped up uh from the couch and he said oh my God and I said they're going to need you and all of a sudden his uh fire department beepers went off and he was out the door and that was the last I saw him Father Michael died while administering last rights to a fallen firefighter his body was carried into a nearby church we went into the church and it was just it was one of those moments it was just eerily beautiful and they had laid his body just in front of the Altar and covered it with a sheet and they laid his um badge and his ID card on his chest and his stole on his uh folded up beautifully on his legs and it was just everybody just nailed quietly and cried and then got up and we went back to work so when I got the call um it was such uh it was so sad um in fact it was truly like I had lost lost lover lot a friend and and we have he had a special gift given to him by by God you know he was uh the first one everyone who was killed down there was given a number and he was number one so we like to say that that was because he was there to lead everybody into heaven welcome to a special Encore edition of In The Life the news magazine on gay and lesbian issue and culture hi I'm Katherine Linton digging through in the life's Rich archives we were struck by how the hopes and aspirations of the people we've interviewed over the years have remained constant concerns of family and Faith job security and discrimination health and relationships all still resonate in reports that reach back through the most historic decade for gay rights we're happy to bring these stories back as part of this special in the Life Encore Edition recent studies show that as many as 14 million children in the United States are being raised by gay men and lesbians next we profile two couples who are part of this growing phenomenon The Gabby [Music] boom Seattle residents Dan Savage and his partner Terry adopted their son DJ in 1998 Dan who was a widely syndicated columnist humorist and author recently wrote about their adoption experience in his book The Kid what happened after my boyfriend and I decided to go get pregnant we decided to have a kid because I'm allergic to dogs so we couldn't go the usual uh sort of gay male offspring route um when we met I had been talking to some lesbian friends about co-parenting about making a baby for a very long time and uh so kids were always on our radar from from the start of the relationship and then when that Arrangement fell through with the lesbians we just sort of very naturally progressed into adoption we didn't really look at other options um once we kind of learned about open adoption it just seems it seemed like the smart thing to do because we did an open adoption there were things that that we got to do that most adoptive couples don't get to do we were at the hospital for the birth we were with the baby when he was 10 minutes old we were there when the um birth mother gave him up probably the most difficult moment was when we actually had to um sort of take DJ out of his birth mother's arms and put him in his you know child safety seat and walk out of the hospital room and down the hall and to our car with him right after he was born our birth mother has legally enforceable visitation rights four times a year if we want to meet more than that we can if she wants to meet less than that she doesn't have to come but we have to be available four times a year to her and that's not much of a sacrifice to make considering what she's given us Pam and Helen live in a suburb of Los Angeles and are the new parents of six-month-old Grace when we first decided to get pregnant the original plan was for Pam to carry the baby with my brother's donated sperm um but for various reasons uh Pam's work schedule my work schedule the timing um we decided that it was not the best thing so we explored other avenues and then one day we woke up and said well we you know we really really want to have a half Filipino half Caucasian baby and P looked at me and said well I know a really easy way for us to do that and that would be for me to carry the child we went to the California cryo Bank uh and we searched a lot of different donors and looked at their profiles once we found a pool of of guys that had a clean health history we found a guy that was coloring very much like my dad's he must be devilishly good-looking because uh the child is just I we think she's beautiful every month I'd call the cryo Bank pick up the sperm take it to the doctor's office get inseminated and uh um and see what happens it was an amazing process psychologically because uh you know here you you you grow up um thinking that if you come within a country mile of sperm you're going to be pregnant at least that's the impression my mother gave me for sure growing up and now we're buying this stuff for $1 $10 for a little tiny vial and it's hard to get pregnant because they live in California Pam is able to secure a second parent adoption which will give her the same legal rights over Grace that Helen her biological mother now enjoys however laws on this issue vary widely from state to state there are current more than 20 states that do not permit this kind of adoption and three states that expressly prohibit it they do the paperwork exactly as though Helen were giving up all her rights to the child but they attach a rider that says except the birth mother is not giving up parental rights it's roughly the same amount of paperwork you'd need to do to close a transaction on aund million uh commercial building it's unbelievable amount of paperwork though Dan and Terry had DJ baptized in in a Catholic Church neither considers himself very religious Pam and Helen on the other hand are both very active in their church and hope that their faith will guide them in raising Grace I think that faith has guided us through our decision to marry it's guided us through our decision to have the baby it's going to guide us on how to raise her and how to deal with the issues that she's going to need to deal with Reverend Larry Kean is the senior minister of the Church of the Valley in vanise California they came to me and asked me if I would like to share in the public uh dedication of their daughter and we were very excited about that it's a ceremony where we're making a commitment um to one another to Grace uh to our families uh and to God when we talk about family we're not just talking about heterosexual families but that we have an opportunity to embrace not only homosexual couples but the families that come from the love that homosexual couples have together both couples agree that a strong support system is vital for any household headed by gay men or lesbians given the many myths that exist about gay parenting I think the most common one is that at the most basic level is that children will be influenced by the gayness that they'll be exposed to a sexuality that um some people AR comfortable with um and that they themselves will grow up to be gay Virginia Casper is a developmental psychologist and educator and that's the simplest one to um dismantle because it's evident that most if not um you know 98% of gay lesbian people were raised in straight families and so it's clear that that uh we need to think about that I think all the data shows that children who are raised by gay and lesbian fames have all the building blocks that any other child would have plus there are some built-in potential positives such as having to deal with being different being able to express who they are and make an argument for themselves we went into the whole process expecting to encounter a homophobic judge a homophobic social worker and nowhere did we encounter it and we quickly realized that the only people at these meetings of the agency who were feeling it that we were gay who were noticing it or having a problem with it was us it's not for everybody it doesn't just change some of your life it changes every minute of every day but it is such a wonderful experience and just because we're gay people we shouldn't miss that it's so enriching a typical day in our household starts at 5:30 a.m. when Michael leaves for work at 6:30 I make breakfast pack lunches and get the kids ready for school Adam's bus leaves at 7:30 Rose drops Mariana at daycare on the way to school and I Drive Madison to hers as heads of a family John and I take part in the same overwhelming and rewarding ritual that millions of Americans go through each day but society's traditional support structures don't always extend to families like ours organization like family Pride are trying to change that with programs like parenting groups advocacy training and a Local Schools project family Pride provides information and support to parents like us around the world for a link to family Pride log on to the in Theif website at in Theif tv.org we're the GL you're watch watching in the [Music] life [Music] deaf lesbians and gay men were a visible part of the 1993 March on Washington exhibiting pride in their identity and culture like G and lesbians who belong to other minority groups deaf men and women live in more than one world and where they feel most at home may be surprising Bob RoR and his partner Ed Aldridge live in Alexandria Virginia with their dogs they both work for the federal government and both are in their 30s they have one major difference however Bob is deaf and Ed is hearing when I first met him he didn't know how to sign at all but his roommates par parents were deaf so he had a TTY a device that allows the deaf to communicate over the telephone he talked to his roommate and his roommate taught him some signs some finger spelling and how to use the TTY I think the first thing was I saw that he was very patient with uh people that were trying to communicate so I figured you know I I could make an effort and uh you know I I didn't have to be perfect so that's how I started learned finger spelling and at some point when we were dating I I decided I'd take a sign language class we started out writing with a pen and paper then I wanted him to get involved in Deaf culture there were a lot of things he didn't understand so I had to explain things like the differences in behavior for example tapping the shoulder for attention or using facial expressions sometimes I would respond to what he was saying with a facial expression and he would interpret it to mean that I was upset when in fact I wasn't I just didn't understand what he was saying you know when you're tired you're not necessarily going to be walking around with a smile on your face and so if I'm coming around and I'm thinking about something you know the drive home from work that really aggravated me and then I turn and say to Bob something about um you know is it your turn to make dinner it comes across much differently than it was intended cuz facial expression is the punctuation of sign language Bob and Ed have considered adopting a child but are afraid that the child could one day be taken away from them by the courts however their desire to expand their family LED them to rescue two Dalmatians deaf dalmati who they've taught to understand sign language being very different I think we kind of add some kind of balance to a relationship you know he has one set of strengths and I have another set of strengths um I think there's a certain amount of tension on the con side anytime you have uh different cultures involved in a relationship it's amazing what you what you can do when you think something's worth it you have to have the desire to make something work gadet University in Washington DC is the only undergraduate University in the world for the death and heart of hearing it was here that Candace Mulla and Sharon ducho met Candace is now back at gadet working on her doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Sharon works as a mental health counselor the two live in Bethesda Maryland and are the mothers of a 2 and 1 half-year-old girl we discussed it and we really wanted to have our own child we discussed who the donor should be we wanted our child to know the donor we wanted the donor to allow our child to meet him if she wanted to we didn't want to keep this a secret from her we also wanted to know the donor's medical history Sharon and Candice were looking for a donor that would enable their child to share their unique culture it was important to us that the donor beat a hereditary deaf person since we would have a better chance of having a deaf child this doesn't mean we wouldn't have wanted our child if she'd been born hearing we would have loved her just the same so we asked him and he agreed and we worked out all the details everything went as planned the day our daughter was born we felt that she was deaf we tested her hearing by turning up the TV to a loud roar and she remained sound asleep she was tested at 6 weeks and it was confirmed that she was deaf we were thrilled having Jean has brought us more out into the open about our relationship our family we don't want to keep this hidden we don't want her to grow up embarrassed or ashamed about her family it's our responsibility to let people know who we are and that we're proud of our family this started with letting people at school know we're lucky that all the parents were supportive and accepting of us one of the teach teachers even wrote a supporting letter for us when one of us went through the adoption process that was very nice and we feel very accepted by the school and by the other parents it was important for Candace and Sharon that their daughter was born at home surrounded by a support system of other women women like Jan deap Jean's godmother who lives with them and takes care of Jean while her mothers are at work some people ask me what I'll do if kids tease her about having lesbian moms I know that may happen because kids can be coel at times and they tease other kids about many things like wearing glasses or having divorced parents so I'm not worried about the teasing I expect it will happen but our job is to teach her how to deal with it in the right way I think Jean will develop a gift of sensitivity to others because of being different she'll be a good person I hope in comp with it agreement sometimes I wish my partner was deaf so he wouldn't get up complaining about the dogs barking all night long I tend to be living uh kind of in both worlds um but I don't always experience the two issues simultaneously it's either one or the other if there was a party of straight people and they were deaf and a party of gay people but they were hearing and didn't know sign language I would prefer the straight party that's because I'd be able to communicate with people at the other party although the people were gay I'd feel frustrated trying to communicate with the hearing people it's because I identify first and foremost as a deaf person I grew up in a hearing World struggling and feeling frustrated trying to be a hearing person until about seven or eight years ago I don't want Jon to go through that struggle over speech and feel incompetent my whole childhood I wondered what was wrong with me why I was different I didn't know until I entered the deaf World finally I understood it was all about communication I was finally able to relate to others on the same level that's what I'd been missing I want to say something about self-esteem if you're told it's bad to be deaf it's awful and very deflating to be constantly told you must be like hearing people it's the same with gays and lesbians if you're constantly told you must be straight and you struggle to be straight deep down inside you don't feel good about who you really [Music] are according to the family Pride Coalition there are more than 14 million children being raised by gay and lesbian parents in the United States these children and their parents face unique challenges at home at school and in their communities for a list of organizations that offer support information and resources for Gay and Lesbian families visit in the life's website at www.in theel tv.org I'm Susan morbido and you're watching in the [Music] life [Music] hi I'm Terence mcnali this is my mother and you're watching in the [Music] light still to come on in the light making a difference in South Central Los Angeles and an organization for the children of gay parents but first the rise of anti-gay sentiment has seemed to grow in proportion to Newfound visibility the nation has watched battles unfold in such places as Colorado and Oregon the best response to all such controversy is the simple truth that is what filmmakers D mossbacher and Francis Reed had in mind when they produced Straight From the Heart a moving documentary which profiles parents who have come to understand their lesbian and gay children this video is being shown to legislators Educators and church members around the country both of us grew up in southeast Idaho we have a long tradition of uh membership in the latterday Saint religion or the Mormon church for several Generations we have four Sons U Brad was our eldest I remember distinctly the day that the evening that Brad told us of his homosexuality it was the biggest shock of my life I had no in inkling that Brad was gay I I could not believe it I did not believe it I had had strong visceral responses against homosexual persons for as long as I could remember a kind of conditioning that came from our greater society and and from our church in particular the sad thing about gays and lesbians is that this is the one group that the discrimination digs down into their own families most of the other groups are fairly supportive within the family unit except for this one I just remember being called by some of my cousins or listening to my cousins call my sister um a and say that it was a wh's disease and where did she catch that white disease because it was just assumed somehow that there were no lesbians in the black community and so if my sister and I were lesbians then we picked it up from white people throughout throughout my life I have always said this problem deserves maybe two minutes this one can have a half an hour well I think this one got at least two weeks but then it was a matter of going through the process of deciding where does the problem lie why is it a problem is it a problem because I think that they should not be lesbians or is it because I'm ashamed to tell my friends and all of my answers came back to the problem lies with me not them I had thought previously that I did not know any homosexual people eventually of course as it is with many straight people once we allow it to happen we realize that we have friends and acquaintances all around us who are homosexual going down there and meeting his friends was was a door opener for me in that respect found they were normal normal people They were healthy human beings they they did interesting things um I came back and begin to through Brad know of more homosexual people in our own Community including a number of my students and some of my colleagues who were among the brightest and most sensitive people I knew I was one of the original co-founders of Exodus International which is this organization that believes it it's possible to change from gay to straight and was active ly involved in that program as a counselor and one of the leaders for 5 years and finally realized after doing that for 5 years that not only had we not been successful in changing a single person from gay to straight but that we were actually doing a lot of harm to people we had people that were in the program four or five years going to therapists um going to Bible studies living an extremely restrictive kind of Life whose feelings still did not change you know I I trained Katie to be a heterosexual he did and if if I had an agenda with my children that was my agenda was for them to be normal heterosexuals Katie turned out to be a normal homosexual and um you know she is to me and and and I don't know maybe it's a mutual admiration Society she's just a great person and I'm pleased to say as the chief of police she's a good cop my mother was the first straight person I ever told I was gay um um and my family were were the first straight people who learned I was gay and I told them all within about two and a half months of my coming out myself um and the reason I did was I was in love it was an experience I never had before in my life and it was very important to share the fact that I was in love with someone when jimie actually told us that he was gay uh was an experience in which we found felt shock but uh and distress because we didn't understand and we didn't know much about homosexuality and we really could not imagine what his life would be like the uh few things that we had heard did not seem to fit him at all but they were they were frightening we had to look at our at our own understanding of the Bible at our own understanding of our Christian faith what was important about it and our own experience and put those three things together uh growing up I had never heard any of the passages that are now cited about homosexuality it was never a major factor in Christian education I then had to look at those six or seven passages uh and I found that I I felt that uh they were being misused they were being abused uh in a form that we in the church called proof texting they were being pulled out of context they were being pulled out to support an already uh formed opinion rather than used within the context of God's revelation of love and his uh reconciling Redemption for for all people and his call to uh to relationship it's inherent in what we say in the Episcopal Church in our baptismal vows that that that we're called to to respect the Dignity of every human being and we're called to to serve Christ in every person whether those persons different from us regardless of how they differ from us uh this is what it means to be a Christian there's some folks out there that declare themselves to be real smart and a preaching about the bad differences in God's people well there's only one perfect person that ever walked the face of this Earth and that was Jesus Christ according to what I know about it the rest of us fall far short of Grace yet we're all here and we're God's creation and human beings so as we learn about each other we're going to be accepting each other for what we are the wide range the wide diversity of human beings in God's world today this is Tracy he's recently um discharged from the US Navy and um we are very proud of him and the stand that he has made our family has a child that has not gained his rightful Freedom as yet and he's just now stepping up the line and saying I want my freedom you know I was talking with with Senator Graham this morning and and he was saying to me you know why is it that you have to come out I mean why is it that you have to you know drag this into the workplace and and why can't you keep your private life private and I said and I was telling him I said you know sir you can't keep your private life private nobody does and I I said you know you're wearing a wedding ring on your hand and you have a picture of your wife behind you your desk here and uh and don't tell me that you've never cared about somebody so much or had such a great weekend with someone that you came into the office here and talked about them on Monday I said nobody keeps their work their private life completely private and uh what you're asking me to do is consistently consciously lie you know not not just not to put the picture on my desk but to consciously and consistently lie to you and all my co-workers about what I do on the weekends and about uh who I care about and who I choose to spend my life with that's what you're asking me to do in the last 27 years of my career and that's all I have to judge it by I've seen minorities go through the same thing that the gays and lesbians are going through right now it was sobly acceptable to use racial epithets in the locker room when women came along it was sobly acceptable to uh make sex marks or to discriminate because of their gender in 1993 that's no longer acceptable there's just one group left where it's still sobly acceptable and that's with the gays and lesbians several different Studies have indicated that gay teenagers are three to four times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers adolescence can be a difficult time and kids who are seen treated as different can be devastated by the rejection isolation harassment and even violence they sometimes face we have a lot of work to do to make a future that is truly safe for our gay lesbian bisexual and transgendered children one organization that provides information and support to Gay and questioning youth is the Trevor Project it offers a nationwide hotline open 24 hours a day 365 days a year young people can talk to trained counselors and find local resources and all calls are free and confidential if you're feeling hurt and alone or if you know someone who is look for a link to the Trevor Project helpline on the inthelife website at inthelife tv.org I'm Susan sandon and you're watching in the [Music] life [Music] and now we focus on Rue and juel a couple who've made it their mission to make a difference we begin with juel who 23 years ago opened this club Catch one that is by Night the largest African-American gay disco in the country and by day serves as a community center [Music] I started the club in 1972 the dream first came to me when I was working across the street at a supermarket as a checker back in the late 60s and uh it was known to all the African-Americans that they weren't welcome you know at the uh what was then called the Diana Club so I just kind of said to myself one of these days I'll own that club and everybody will be welcome you know back in the 70s when she started the Disco thing um and I was doing my disco thing uh I didn't know jel personally then so I I I had no idea of the vision that she had for our community catchment one means a lot of things to a lot of people um for me it's um like my being able to contribute to the community I I think um it's been very instrumental as far as being a place where people could gather to get information about what was going on this was always a place for us to come and to to organize usually in the African-American Community the church is the Cornerstone and the catch one was kind of like the church to our Gan lesbian Community because there was a space here uh there was a freedom for us to come and meet and organized and a lot of the political organizing that came out of out of our community um happened here in the early days of unity Fellowship we had Services here we had our church services here I stood on the stage with Jesse Jackson when he was running for president I've been here for AA meetings for uh CA meetings uh I have taken meals to the homeless from the kitchen downstairs so we partied here but we did good work here as well for most people that would be work enough but in 1989 ruin used profits from the catch one disco to open ruse's house a shelter for women and children with AIDS we basically wanted to do something um to help the the children and uh the mothers uh in terms of keeping them Under One Roof no one was doing that they were separating them and the children were going to uh foster care and uh women were going into adult shelters and we felt that um it's just about impossible to keep someone clean and sober to encourage them uh to go on living and snatch their child from them I've had uh women to come and stay as long as 3 years we have women that will come here and clean up and then get back out on the streets and they will use again and they'll come back they'll call me and ask me if they can come back and when they come back they're just a little bit sicker just a little worse off we help them again and I've had them come in and out and as long as they don't give me any real problems when they're here this is their home they can always come back here it makes us feel good because we know that we're doing something right you know that we are providing uh a home for them to want to come back too Ru and I met at Unity Fellowship I invited her to dinner and she never went home after that and our community people simply don't um they generally don't take vows and when they do they don't have ceremony so we don't take ourselves seriously and if we don't take ourselves seriously with our relationships we can't expect Society to do so fortunately uh we're not youngsters and and so I trust her implicitly to um you know to to to be okay person and and I I believe she trusts me too that's definite um you know you get to a certain age you only have enough energy to do so much and we and ours is generally spent in the community trying to make a [Music] difference most people don't spend much time preparing themselves for unexpected losses and while legal marriage carries with it a series of statutes that automatically protect Partners in many such situations lesbian and gay men enjoy none of these protections unless we make our own Provisions there's no way to secure all of the rights of marriage but we can protect ourselves and our families by creating Wills Powers of Attorney and parenting agreements to name a few resources include Regional and National organizations as well as a growing number of law firms that practice or even specialize in this area of law to locate resources in your area look for a link on the inthelife website at inthe tv.org I'm Kate Clinton and you're watching in the [Music] life as our viewers know stories about gay families have been a regular feature on in the life for this episode we turn our lens to the Sons and Daughters of gay parents for a kid having a gay or lesbian parent can bring distinct challenges as well as unusual rewards for our future story we look at the issues these children face and an organization that is offering them support we have six children together you here ages from 20 on down to six four of them are biologically mine um two are biologically sataras we brought everybody together not to say that it hasn't had its ups and downs The Brady Bunch yeah so how's your yearbook project going pretty good well I have two moms it's it's a normal thing I'm not eating with my hands mother not really so how I've been living with them for 10 years you know I mean it's like I'm kind of used to it I think the only time it becomes an issue is when it's someone else's problem unfortunately for the millions of kids growing up in the US with a lesbian or gay parent it is often someone else's problem my friends don't call my mom Nam and I don't like it our friends like still make fun of gay people we're like we don't feel comfortable telling them we just kind of like combine our two moms into one cuz like sometimes we're talking about one mom sometimes talking about another one being a child of a gay or less being or bisexual transgender parent is very similar I think to growing up as a gay person in that you unconsciously are learning all of these defenses and you don't even know it's happening when you're walking with your two dads and you see kids from your school coming you step away from them wanting to just kind of edit your life a little bit or not be embarrassed there was this one girl in um my elementary school that I had considered a friend I told her that my parents are gay and later on that week she said to me my mom told me that if your parents are gay then you're going to be gay and I don't want to be your friend anymore because of that and I got really hurt by that to counteract the taunts stigma and isolation six young adults with lesbian or gay parents came together in 1990 to form collage which is headquartered in San Francisco our mission is to serve any daughter or son or person with a lesbian gay bisexual transgender questioning parent collage is here so that all of the children who are growing up can feel like they have a home of people who understand their experiences and share their experiences of their family background well collage stands for um children of lesbian and gay environments or something like that I don't know what the E stands for we have 30 chapters around the country and um about 30 perspective chapters in the pipeline we have all kinds of stuff on our website and discussion groups and support groups and pimp pal programs and newsletters led by young people for young people we get between 5 10,000 calls and emails and letters every year there are still people who call here all the time who are so glad to hear about us because they never ever knew that there was one other person in the whole world who had a gay parent they thought they were the only one I mean really in 2001 that still happens I grew up in San Francisco in the' 70s with a gay dad and a lesbian mom I can switch from potluck mode to drag queen mode in heartbeat it's really not a big difference to me we are just parenting a kid like hundreds of thousands of other parents across the country are just parenting their kids you know and when we go to collage that's what it feels like it's just normal of all the muck and discrimination and general ignorance and misinformation that's out there you can sort of boil it down to about three points for kids who have cleer parents that our parents sexually abuse us that because our parents are lesbian G bisexual transgendered we will be as well and that we will be socially stigmatized to a degree that we will not be able to function normally in society all the social science studies that have been done on us to date show that we grow up to be fine but I do believe that we are affected by homophobia I do believe that having to grow up in a world that is unsupportive of our families and our culture and our Our Lives hurts us and I think that it would be really great if Society was less homophobic so that we could Blossom even more into the full potential of of Our Own True selves your lunch is made and it's in here okay when Gabriel first went to school there was name calling he was just in kindergarten and he was barely 5 years old and a second grade boy called him gay because he was in the bathroom with his best friend my reaction was to become an activist and we immediately met with the principal we um organized a workshop for the teachers we did a parent education night at the school schools need to have a zero tolerance policy for slurs one of the biggest things that I hear from from kids is that they hear and Dyke all the time and every time they hear it it's like a wound it's just so painful and it goes completely unchecked we just felt that we wanted our kids to have a sense of pride in in their families and to just have it be kind of normalized I mean we have African-American heritage month and S de mayo and we wanted an event it's an amazing thing when you think about a Public School having a gate Pride assembly a lot of schools do cultural celebrations around different identity groups you know there are also great ways to do different Pride celebrations we really wanted it to be an affirming positive event and uh I think that it has been when gay families are brought together they often discover they have similar challenges and ways to support each other one of the things that was most fulfilling for me coming to collage was meeting other people whose dads had had either died from AIDS or who had or who were HIV positive because my dad is HIV positive and it was something that I was of course in great pain around Brian was adopted by my late partner Kevin she was just over a year old when Kevin and I met and we started living together as a family family and then um Kevin got very sick with HIV bana was you know right by my side and Kevin's side throughout his whole disease process Banna was five when Kevin died about a year after that I met Greg it certainly colored that aspect of her childhood but it also was an opportunity for her to experience the depth of love that she had for Kevin and his love for her and how much incredible Joy he received from her Presence by his side I mean it was amazing to watch um and I know that that has has enabled her to be as open and loving and trusting with people as she is when I came to collage and I met other people who had been through it and who had survived it and who were able to support me and who showed me that I would be able to survive it as well that was very very meaningful for me and that has been a gift that I have tried to pass on when I ask a a child what have you learned from growing up in a lesbian gay bisexual transgender home what they say is I have learned to be a stronger person from dealing with difference I have learned to have a greater sense of empathy and a larger commitment to social justice for all people because of the Discrimination that I have faced in my own life they're growing up into these incredibly vibrant fascinating interesting strong compassionate people who are going off to their own schools and their own careers and starting their own families and and spreading all of that change I mean I I think it's incredible and I think in 20 years or 40 years we're going to see in America that totally different because of [Music] that from all of us at in the Life thanks for watching and and we'll see you next [Music] month [Music] in the life is funded in part by the H vanam ringan Foundation additional support provided by the Gil Foundation William J Resnik and the annual 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