Gay Couples Face Pressure to Fill Cradles

Who would have believed a decade or more ago that younger gay couples would be experiencing family pressure to have children.  The New York Times looks at this development which must be sending the Christianists into spittle spraying conniption fits.  The more same sex couples have children and become involved in PTA's, children's' sporting events and all the aspects of parenthood, the more difficult it will become for the Christofascists to denigrate and stigmatize same sex couples and same sex civil marriage.  Worse yet from the hate merchants' perspective is that children and youth will increasingly see same sex couples and same sex parenting as a normal part of life.  As for the whining one will hear from the Christofascists that they are concerned about the impact on children, such whining will be a lie (so what else is new?).  These foul people would rather that children languish unloved in orphanages and foster homes rather than that they be placed with loving and supportive same sex couples.  Here are highlights from the Times piece:

WASHINGTON — When the jubilant couple were wed in June, they exchanged personalized vows and titanium rings, cheered the heartfelt toasts and danced themselves breathless. Then, as the evening was winding down, unexpected questions started popping up.

One after another, their guests began asking: Are you going to have kids? When are you going to have kids?

Tom Lotito and Matt Hay, both 26, could not help but feel moved. They never imagined as teenagers that they would ever get married, much less that friends and family members would pester them about having children. 

“It’s another way that I feel like what we have is valid in the eyes of other people,” said Mr. Hay, who married Mr. Lotito in June before 133 guests. 

The process can be also daunting logistically and financially, as would-be parents wrestle with whether to adopt or use a surrogate. And once they have children, many same-sex couples still endure the inevitable criticism — spoken or unspoken — from those who remain uncomfortable with the notion of their being parents. 

But support for same-sex parents is growing steadily among Americans. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in July and released last week found for the first time that a majority of people surveyed — 52 percent — said that gay men and lesbians should be allowed to adopt children, up from 46 percent in 2008 and 38 percent in 1999. 

The shift in public opinion and the simple question — Are you having children? — is nothing short of a marvel to some gay men, perhaps even more so than to lesbians, for whom giving birth has always been an option.

 

As lawmakers and courts expand the legal definition of the American family, same-sex couples are beginning to feel the same what-about-children pressure that heterosexual

Popular culture is helping rewrite that script. Gay men who have children, or are considering having children, are becoming increasingly visible on network television. In “Modern Family,” the nation’s most popular television show, the couple Mitchell and Cameron considered adopting a second child this past season. In “Scandal,” a new ABC series, a middle-aged White House staff member groused about his partner’s desire to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. And this fall, a new NBC sitcom called “The New Normal” will feature a gay couple and their surrogate. 

The shift is also reflected in census data. Between 2000 and 2010, among same-sex couples raising children, the percentage of couples with adopted children increased to 20 percent from 9 percent,  .   .   ..  

“The definition of family is unquestionably evolving,” Dr. Gates said.  But he also noted that many Americans remain deeply opposed to gay parents raising children. Same-sex couples are explicitly prohibited from adopting in two states — Utah and Mississippi — and they face significant legal hurdles in about half of all other states, particularly because they cannot legally marry in those states. And some religious leaders have refused to provide adoption services to gay couples. 

I see the trend as more evidence that the Christofascists are slowly losing their anti-gay jihad.  I also expect the shrillness and extremism from the Christofascists to increase as they fight their losing rear guard battle.  Read the rest of the article.