Living in downtown Manhattan means my kids have known same sex partners for as long as they can remember. But recent events have definitely bumped up this idea in their awareness. Ever since the Marriage Equality Act was passed in New York, my daughter has been proudly proclaiming that two women can marry each other to whoever will listen.

But I realize that my kid’s exposure to gay couples (and our family’s attitude) isn’t necessarily typical. As gay marriage gets more normalized, more children will begin to grasp the idea that love exists beyond the boundaries of the man-woman relationship. Though this warms my open-minded heart, I’m guessing this isn’t everyone’s idea of positive progress. But it’s happening; and it’s probably going to be a lot less weird for the kids who grow up with this concept than some of their parents, who have to unlearn the stigmas they grew up with.

Watch, for example, as this little boy meets his very first gay couple and puts two and two together.

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Ain't nothin' natural 'bout gay people makin' babies, says TN lawmaker.

Uh oh, bad news bears!  Towleroad reports that “Tennessee’s Senate has approved Stacey Campfield’s hideous ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill which would forbid discussion of homosexuality in classrooms.”  The bill was approved 19-11 today, in the hopes that from now on instruction materials at public elementary or middle schools in Tennessee will pretend gay people don’t exist.  What’s that you say, Billy?  You have two moms?  Not anymore you don’t. Continue reading »

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The Vatican responded Monday to abuse charges in the Catholic Church.

“The Vatican issued a letter Monday that gives Roman Catholic bishops worldwide a year to come up with national guidelines on how to deal with the problem of child sexual abuse by priests,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The letter, they say, “was the latest indication that Pope Benedict XVI has recognized sexual abuse as a global scourge, not an American aberration.” It’s about damn time.

Australia’s ABC News notes, “The Vatican has come under pressure in recent years over paedophilia, and the scandal of child-abuser priests peaked last year with a string of high-profile revelations in Belgium, Germany and Ireland.”  Sexual abuse in the Church has devastated Ireland, and in Italy, victim’s rights groups are dismayed at the Church’s latest attempt to address the issue.  Marco Lodi Rizzini, a spokesman for an Italian victim-support group, says, “This document is simply meaningless words – they have been forced to act but it is not enough. The Vatican has said it will co-operate with the authorities before, but only because it has been forced to,” the Montreal Gazette reports.

Cardinal William J. Levada, who issued the letter, gave priests worldwide until May 2012 to respond and comply with its demands. The LAT says the Vatican letter “grew out of a meeting Levada held with a group of cardinals last fall” and “reminds bishops that sexual abuse of minors is not only a violation of church law but also a crime prosecuted by civil law.” The letter continues to exempt bishops “from reporting information that emerges during confession.” In other words, if a priest admits that he abused a member of the congregation during the rite of confession, that information remains privileged.

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74-year-old former bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who thinks molestation is no big deal.

In an addendum to last week’s mind-blowingly offensive assertion by the Catholic League that sexual abuse in the Church is caused by “homosexuality, not pedophilia,” and that some children willingly participated in the abuse, a Belgian priest made a televised announcement on Thursday admitting that he sexually abused two of his nephews, diminutively describing the molestation as just “a little game.”

As you can imagine, this “caused an uproar in Belgium on Friday, with the prime minister, senior clergy and a prosecutor expressing shock at the way the ex-prelate made light of his offenses,” the Associated Press reports.  The priest, 74-year-old Roger Vangheluwe, the former bishop of Bruges, contends that he was never naked, therefore the abuse was never about “real sexuality.”  Vangheluwe declared, “I never felt the least attraction to a child” and denies being a pedophile.

Okay, sure.  So why touch your nephew for 13 years, from when he was 5 to 18, then?  Vangheluwe dismissed the severity of his offenses by saying, “From me toward him there was a bit of intimacy that occurred each time we saw one another.  And of which we later said, ‘That’s not right.’” Continue reading »

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Protesters angry over sex abuse denial in the Catholic Church.

This story is both disturbing and disappointing – to say the least – but unfortunately not at all surprising.  On Monday, the Catholic League (which has the nerve to end their organization’s name with the descriptor “for Religious and Civil Rights”) ran a full page ad in The New York Times blaming sexual abuse in the Church on “homosexuality, not pedophilia.”

And, as The Raw Story points out, “it also claimed that some children were active participants in the abuse.”

If Bette Midler is correct and God is watching us, I hope He’s throwing up right now. Continue reading »

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What if you were never introduced to children until you were this woman's age?

I didn’t become a stepdad until age 36 — a biological father until 37 — which means that, relatively speaking, I was a bit late to fatherhood. Like anything else, being an older dad has both advantages and disadvantages. As I prepare for the arrival of my fifth child (whom I’ve taken to calling Grand Finale), anxiety has pushed some of the disadvantages to the fore. I constantly wonder how I’ll find the energy to tend to an infant amidst all the other daily things that my 41-year-old body will still be required to do.

But behind those anxious thoughts exists a confidence I often forget about — one that comes only with age. Because while the physicality of parenting may favor the young, recognizing and interpreting the ways in which children enrich our lives is something more easily accomplished by the wise. And wisdom only comes with age.

Which is why I was so taken by a piece I read today by Sandy Boucher. For she never had children of her own, and only discovered them for the first time in her capacity as the gay grandmother of four. And I found her words to be very wise, indeed.

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Remember Constance McMillen?  She’s the student that was banned from escorting her girlfriend to the senior prom in Mississippi.  The local branch of the A.C.L.U jumped to her defense and petitioned the school on her behalf.  School officials responded that same-sex dates (not to mention tuxedo-wearing females) were against school policy. The civil rights organization shot back that said policy was unconstitutional.   End result:  the prom was canceled for everyone.   Luckily for Constance (and all non-heterosexual kids), the A.C.L.U. wants to continue to fight the fight.

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