Tuesday, February 24, 2009


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

i saw this posted over at ashleys and had to repost.

gay marriage is an issue very close at heart to me. i think i have a pretty interesting story and since most of my real life friends know this, i always forget that it's not that common knowledge here in the blogiverse. so sit back cause here we go.

i have a mom. and a dad. and a dad. and a step dad.

yes take a moment and count that. 3 dads.

people think i miscounted or that my mom is really busy and keeps a divorce lawyer on speed dial. then i tell them how my bio dad is gay and raised me with other dad thomas. people then assume my mom just carried me and went away. then i tell them how my dad was bisexual and married my mom and had my brother (who died at a few days old) my other brother, then me.
then a few years after that they didn't get along and got divorced. then my dad met thomas. then one of chicago's best private schools (if not best to be honest) was a few blocks away from the apt building thomas owned and it was catholic, my mom let me and bro go live there. i saw my mom every weekend and after school alot too. in the meanwhile my mom met my stepdad jim and got married. so since i was about 5 i have had 4 people raise me and love me.

when i was in high school, due to a lot of things, my dad and thomas split up when i was a senior. so eventually it was my dad and lance, thomas and mik, my mom and jim.

what really drove me crazy was everyone always asking "you still talk to thomas?". never mind the fact he's been around since i was 4 but you know, obviously why would i want to talk to someone that raised me? that's so silly. i mean honestly, it gets me upset because, so what, he wasn't biological, he was my dad. if he was my dads second wife i don't think people would have questioned as much.

even now at 25, people are really surprised and say "oh thats SO nice you still talk" and i feel like asking, "oh do you still talk to your mom/dad? aww that's nice". thomas is my dad, he takes care of me, he listens when i need it, he loves me, he lets me be me. he financially supports my school, his parents are the ones i consider my grandparents, not my other dad. he's the one who will walk me down the aisle when i get married.

i was lucky. i grew up in a rich neighborhood and private schools and with conservative people. i should have had bad experiences but i didn't. my principals, teachers, other kids parents, everyone just accepted it. people embraced and loved me and love my family. i think it helped a few of my friends who would later come out to see such a happy loving gay/straight family be accepted by the community.

my aunt (well more like 2nd cousin but she acts like thomas's sister then cousin) got married this year to her girlfriend and it was a beautiful LA wedding. Chasitiy Bono was there!

i was raised with love all around me. for our government which is about separation of church and state to have a say in who gets marriage rights, i am furious and ashamed.

i can't fathom how people can deny love.

6 comments:

Andy said...

I knew you had a gay dad but not 4 gay dads!! And a mom and another dad!

And I totally understand you getting along with Thomas. He was never the "mean step-dad". In fact, he was a GREAT dad, you're here to prove it!

You've known him for all your life, he helped your dad to raise you, he's your dad.

I personally think you're very lucky. And you can be a proof that children who live with gay couples are not "perturbed" people afterward, but amazing ones.

Mandy said...

I LOVE this post! LOVE IT! You are an awesome person and ALL of your parents did an awesome job raising you. Love is a beautiful thing and it comes in many ways. Life's too short to argue over petty things like whom should be able to marry whom. I signed the pledge for the courage campaign a few months ago. Its am important message that needs to be heard!

DShan said...

i love this post. a lot. that video's been EVERYWHERE but you actually said something.

and you were the only one who even commented about the books in my post, which added to this post kind of says everything about you i feel like it's necessary to know.

Anonymous said...

Your family sounds AMAZING.

Carissa Thilgen said...

what an amazing story you have. thanks for sharing. i completely agree. love is love is love. no one has the right, especially not the government, to deny it. i have always been accepting of gay/lesbian couples, but what really i guess brought that home, for lack of a better phrase, was living with a gay couple, one who happened to be a friend from work. seeing them interact and how much they love and our committed to each other just reaffirmed my belief that everyone has the right to love and marry whomever they choose.

Little Fish said...

You are truly blessed to have so many parents that love you. I had 5 Grandparents drowing up (3 Grandparents anf 2 great grandparents) and I always felt so lucky becaue of that. That is what hearing about all of your parents made me think. How lucky were you and I to have all that extra love in our lives!

I hope you've seen Keith Olbermann's rant against Prop 8 because i think he does one of the best jobs of summing the whole fight for equality up. The basic gist of what he says is simply that there is so much pain in the world why would we ever create more when we should be standing up and fighting for love in all its forms!

You are clearly a great example of how love and not sexuality, race, religion or anything else defines a family.