Many grown children of gay couples are now speaking out against the criticism directed at their parents:
'Gayby boom': Children of gay couples speak out
CNN -- Jesse Levey is a Republican activist who says he believes in family values, small government and his lesbian mothers' right to marry.
Levey is part of the "gayby boom" generation. The 29-year-old management consultant is the son of a lesbian couple who chose to have a child through artificial insemination. He's their only child.
Critics of same-sex marriage say people such as Levey will grow up shunned and sexually confused. Yet he says he's a "well-adjusted heterosexual" whose upbringing proves that love, not gender, makes a family.
"You can imagine what my parents thought when I was 13 and listening to Rush Limbaugh everyday," Levey says. "But my family had strong family values. I was raised in a loving, caring household that let me be a free thinker."
[...]
While much of the controversy surrounding gay rights today has centered on same-sex marriage, a battle is brewing over another family issue: Is it bad for children to be raised by gay or lesbian parents.
It damages the children, says Dale O'Leary, author of "One Man, One Woman: A Catholics Guide to Defending Marriage." She says that all children have a natural desire for a parent of each gender.
But children of same-sex couples are forced to repress that desire because their parents won't accept it, she says. Their parents won't acknowledge their children's needs because they don't want to admit that they have caused their children to suffer.
"A baby is not a trophy -- the child's welfare has to be considered," she says. "These children are more likely to experiment with same-sex relationships. They're more likely to be confused and hurt."
Children of same-sex couples come out of the closet
O'Leary says she doesn't personally know any same-sex parents or their children. That's the problem, some children of same-sex children say. So many people are talking about them; not enough are talking to them, they say. [...]
I've heard these arguments many times. I've also known gay couples and their kids, and their children turn out much like other kids do.
The people who keep hammering away against gay parents with the same tired old arguments, that have no scientific basis and run contrary to what people actually know from personal experience, will find themselves and their opinions increasingly discredited.
I predict that like gay marriage itself, gays having children will remain controversial in the short term, but will increasingly gain acceptance over time, as people get to know such families, and see the results are statistically much like other families.
