Two adults with same-sex parents last week publicly defended families like theirs against those who sought to disparage them—including two gay men and a woman with two moms.
Sidney Switzer, who grew up with two moms, wrote at HuffPo in response to an article at The Federalist by Heather Barwick. Barwick, whose different-sex parents divorced before her mother began a relationship with another woman, had written that:
By and large, the best and most successful family structure is one in which kids are being raised by both their mother and father. . . . Gay marriage doesn’t just redefine marriage, but also parenting. It promotes and normalizes a family structure that necessarily denies us something precious and foundational. It denies us something we need and long for, while at the same time tells us that we don’t need what we naturally crave.
Barwick is, of course, entitled to her opinion. But Switzer shows us why Barwick’s view should not be applied to same-sex parents as a whole, by noting that although Heather missed her father—a father she had had in her life for several years—it doesn’t necessarily follow that all children need both a mother and a father. Additionally, it was Heather’s mother’s approach to her particular situation—poor parenting choices by an individual—that caused Heather pain. Switzer writes, “When Heather’s mother and new same-sex partner made her feel like her feelings were wrong and she didn’t have a voice, it was not poor gay parenting. It was poor parenting, period.”
Separately, Zach Wahls (of the twice viral marriage equality speech) wrote a response at Quartz to the negative comments that Italian designers Stefanno Gabbana and Domenico Dolce—both gay themselves—made about same-sex parents and children born through IVF. Wahls shows an understanding of different perspectives that is all too rare. It is only by being able to see where other people are coming from that we can really communicate with them in a way that makes change possible. He writes:
I know plenty of straight allies who have told me they think a mother and a father is probably the most suitable environment for raising children, but who also feel that it’s entirely possible for kids with same-sex parents to turn out just fine. I usually find this point of view uncomfortable, but understandable—this category of person tends to be thinking about their own parents, and what life would have been like without one of them.
I also get uncomfortable when I hear people talk about the necessity of fathers—we usually hear this rhetoric in conversations about responsibility and deadbeat dads. But I have come to realize that this is often shorthand used to advocate for invested and present parents. . . .
My parents are great parents not because they are gay, but because they are present and invested in my life.
Wahls and Switzer have the heart of it. It’s about parenting, period. Thanks to them for speaking up on behalf of families like theirs.