(After months of silence, this caught my attention.)

Well, as a lesbian who "partly raised" but did not adopt my step-daughter's infant son, I have to say that this issue is difficult to imagine if one is on the outside of the family in question. There are so many dynamics that occur within individual families, so many what-ifs, should-have-beens, and so forth. As the postings prove, one person's experience does not the world define. So, my experience, for what it's worth, is that I was able to be a parent despite my beliefs otherwise; I had the ability to care for an infant; I had the strength to be fully present for this little boy, when his teenage mother, his very young adult father, and all the assorted grandparents, hetero and homo, did not. I don't think this quality is related to my sexual identity. I thought then and I believe now, 10 years later, that I received a warm, supported, cared-for upbringing myself and when it came down to it, that's what I had to pass on. I think the model of a heterosexual couple as the "ideal parents" is simply a figment of our cultural/temporal imaginations. It's not really meaningful in terms of who is able to be a parent. Two fully present adults are of course better in many ways than one because children bloom with love and attention, the more the better. I did not choose to adopt my grandson, Austin, because I really wanted his biological parents to care for him so I remain in a support role, even today. This is better in some ways, because of my on-the-road kind of lifestyle. But the connection I have to him is at time closer than his connection with his bio-dad and stepmom (his bio-mom left the picture when he was 3). I hope, though, that his relations to all his family members are strong and meaningful. I have worked very hard to keep his mother's family in touch with him, which is tricky because we're talking a cross-cultural effort here, with the father's family being white and the mother's family Native/Lakota. Several of my own songs have tried to reflect upon this event, as it transformed my already transformed life.

In Portland, OR, where I live, there is an organization called "Love Makes A Family," arising partly out of a 10 year legislative battle with a very obsessed group of fundamentalist Christians who are determined to make gays and lesbians illegal in one way or another. We've defeated them every time, though the margin of defeat is shrinking as the wording on the legislative initiatives becomes more (I hate to say this) sophisticated; more politcally adept. Now they're going after teachers, trying to make it illegal to talk about gay/lesbian issues in the schools. Doesn't it seem as though we all have better things to worry about than whether the two women next door are able to really love and parent their children, adopted or no? Like, how about those priests? What's up with that?

blt