Jeremy Patrick <jhaeman@hotmail.com>

Lincoln Journal-Star <www.journalstar.com> December 2, 2000

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."

--Aldous Huxley

In "The Simpsons," one of my favorite characters is Rev. Lovejoy’s wife. Whenever the citizens of Springfield discuss any controversial issue, her immediate and hilariously shrill reponse is "For heaven’s sake, would someone please think of the children?"

Nationwide, and in Nebraska during the Initiative 416 debate, we were able to see how closely fiction mirrors reality. Religious conservatives and other anti-equal rights groups love to justify their intolerance as necessary to protect children. During the debate over 416, many equated homosexuality with pedophelia. Radio commercials paid for by the amendment’s supporters said the intent of the law was not to discriminate but to prevent children from becoming "confused." A letter to the editor published in the Omaha World-Herald stated that "What thoughts will we sow in the minds of our children if we fail to stand up and say to them that same-sex marriage is not equally as good? Lest we forget, families composed of husbands, wives and children are our future; we have no future without families."

These arguments are well-crafted, emotional appeals. Few of us would knowingly vote for laws that harm children. The problem, however, is that it leaves out one critical fact: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people have children, too.

As of 1990 an estimated 6 to 14 million children have a gay or lesbian parent, and 8 to 10 million children are raised in gay and lesbian households. A 1993 survey showed that 15 percent of gay male and 32 percent of lesbian households included children. U.S. women were only slightly less likely (67 percent to 72 percent) to be mothers than straight women.

GLBT individuals are allowed to adopt in many countries and in every state except Florida, and only Mississippi and Utah bar same-sex couples from adopting (the prohibitions in Mississippi and Florida are being challenged by the ACLU). More than half the states allow the same-sex partner of a biological parent to adopt the couple’s child, and the trend toward increasing acceptance of same-sex parenting is continuing; New Jersey dropped its policy in response to an ACLU lawsuit in 1997, and New Hampshire repealed its prohibition in 1999. Perhaps most importantly, in September Congress ratified the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. The treaty provides uniform standards for international adoptions and passed without the Republican Party’s proposed ban on GLBT adoptions.

With millions of children being raised by GLBT parents, a clear conclusion can be drawn: laws that harm GLBT people are laws that harm their children, too. When GLBT people are fired from their jobs or evicted from their apartments because of their sexual orientation, it is their innocent children who suffer. When same-sex couples are denied the protections of marriage, such as tax benefits, favorable inheritance laws, or hospital visitation rights, their children suffer, too.

Like Rev. Lovejoy’s wife, we do need to think of the children. However, we need to think of all the children. The existence of gay and lesbian parents is a fact, not ideology. Proponents of anti-gay laws may be trying to "save the children," but the ultimate effect of such laws is to harm the physical and psychological well-being of millions of children currently raised by loving GLBT parents.

(c) Jeremy Patrick, 2000