ADULT CHILDREN SPEAK OUT ABOUT SAME-SEX PARENTS

By Maggie Gallagher

It was the TV pictures that first got to Bronagh Cassidy. Same-sex couples
marrying in San Francisco: "They were so proud of themselves. And then
they had these little children with them." Cassidy, a 27-year-old married
mother of two, sighs. "Something inside of me wants to be able to help
those kids, because I know they are going to have problems."

Sound ignorant, maybe even bigoted? This week, as the Senate is expected
to begin debate on a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, many
voices will try to convince you that people like Cassidy are, as Cheryl
Jacque, head of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, put it in a
recent letter, "hate-filled people who will stop at nothing to achieve
their discriminatory, offensive goals."

But Cassidy knows better: She is one of the first generation of "gayby
boom" babies, raised by two moms. Adult children of same-sex parents are
rare. I recently came across Cassidy's story by accident, after she
e-mailed a friend of mine who is a family scholar.

Back in 1976, Cassidy's mom had a religious ceremony with a woman named
Pat. To make Cassidy, they did artificial insemination at home, mixing the
sperm of two gay friends "to make sure nobody would ever know who the
father was," says Cassidy. (That was in the days before widespread DNA
testing.) The two women stayed together for 16 years, until Pat died.
Three years later, Cassidy's mother married a man.

What was it like for Cassidy being raised by two women she called "Mom"
and "My Pat"?

"When growing up, I always had the feeling of being something unnatural,"
Cassidy says. "I came out of an unnatural relationship; it was something
like I shouldn't be there. On a daily basis, it was something I was
conflicted with. I used to wish, honestly that Pat wasn't there."

Why does she oppose same-sex marriage? "It's not something that a seal of
approval should be stamped on: We shouldn't say it is a great and
wonderful thing and then you have all these kids who later in life will
turn around and realize they've been cheated. The adults choose to have
that lifestyle and then have a kid. They are fulfilling their emotional
needs -- they want to have a child -- and they are not taking into account
how that's going to feel to the child; there's a clear difference between
having same-sex parents and a mom and a dad."

Sounds judgmental in print. But up close, Cassidy comes across as fiercely
protective of her mom (Cassidy is a pen name she's adopted to protect her
mom's privacy). Like many children of same-sex parents, she was expected
to defend and protect her mothers from society's homophobia. Her own
troubled feelings about her family life were clearly unacceptable to her
parents. Even now, the prospect of speaking about her own experience gives
her the shakes.

Cassidy's story is not science. It's just her own feelings. Many
researchers say most kids do just fine in these alternative family forms.
Cassidy doesn't buy that research, though. "I don't think a fair study
could be conducted because children currently in that family wouldn't
necessarily be open to speaking their true feelings about it."

A few years back, she watched "20/20" interviews with children like her.
"They were asked questions like: 'Are you happy? Do you love your
parents?' I don't think it's fair to ask them those questions. These are
their parents. They aren't going to say they are suffering, because they
don't want to make their parents feel bad."

Some people will say if Cassidy's mom and "my Pat" had been legally
married, everything would have been fine. Cassidy doesn't think so. "Even
if society were open to it, there's just the whole issue of your
self-identity. I always had the feeling I was in a lab experiment."

She feels driven to do something, say something to protect other children
like her. "Whenever I see it on TV, something inside of me says NO. I
don't think it's fair that the kids are being put in this situation. They
don't have a choice about it."

Do any other adult children with same-sex parents feel the same way? Will
we allow any space in this intense debate between adult combatants for
something as simple as one child's feelings?

(Readers may reach Maggie Gallagher at MaggieBox2004@yahoo.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2004 MAGGIE GALLAGHER