THE NEW JEW REVIEW

Having bid a less-than-fond farewell to our first potential embryo recipients we began to review the dozens of new requests we had received from parents-to-be.

We had specified that we would only donate to a Jewish and/or lesbian couple. Yet the vast majority of the requests we received were from Christian heterosexuals. The second most common group requesting the embryos was single heterosexual women.

Why did so many people write to us who were the exact opposite of the demographic groups we were requesting? I chalk it up to several factors:

1) DEMOGRAPHICS

Obviously there is a far greater number of straight Christian couples than Jewish lesbian couples. There is also a much larger group of five-foot-tall women than of seven-foot-tall men, yet short women rarely waste their time or that of others by trying out for professional basketball teams.

2) FAILURE TO READ OUR LISTING

We got several requests from people who had clearly not read our listing. I assume they simply spammed every donor on the MiraclesWaiting site. One couple described themselves as conservative, in their 30's, high-caste and from India. There was no other message or description in their email! This was the only couple to get no response from me. Despite their high caste.

3) SUPPLY AND DEMAND

For every family with embryos to offer there are thousands of hopeful recipients on waiting lists who wish to receive embryos. Among those thousands are a minority who prioritize their own desires over those of the donors. They probably write to everyone with embryos to offer hoping that even one will respond favorably.

What these people don't keep in mind is that embryo donation is an emotional issue for donor as well as recipient. Each time I received a request I thought "are these the parents for our embryos?" Then we would read their emails, hear their pain, desperation and hope, and have to write back crushing those dreams once more.

We rejected all such applicants out of hand because they had considered only their own feelings and needs. We also felt uncomfortable with heterosexual recipients because they have so many other options for starting a family, primarily adoption of existing children. That is an option that is extremely difficult for gay parents to access.

While many want the experience of pregnancy and breast feeding, we wondered if some of the straight couples who preferred embryo donation over adopting a child were not organized enough to go through the adoption process, or perhaps knew that they could not pass it.

4) A FEELING OF PRIVILEDGE

The straight Christian couples who contacted us (despite our stated preference for gay Jewish recipients) may have believed themselves to be better parents than the gay couples we sought. Straight people seem to assume they will be good parents, whereas societal prejudice makes gay couples question their own suitability to have a child. The straight Christian couples who contacted us clearly thought they were so superior to the average lesbian Jewish couple that we might pick them over such a couple. Since we are, ourselves, a lesbian Jewish couple, we did not find this flattering.

There was a final reason inappropriate candidates gave for contacting us despite our stated criteria. I will go into this in more detail in a future post.

ARE GAY PARENTS BETTER THAN STRAIGHT ONES?

We subscribe to Time magazine but I'm not sure why. Newsweek does a much better reporting job, is a lot more interesting and much less stuffy.

I've been finding Time to be boring but I had not yet been utterly disgusted by it. That was, until I opened the magazine to a hateful opinion piece on gay parents filled with lies and distortions.

The fact of the matter is that gay parents today are, on the whole, better parents than our heterosexual peers. The reason is that gays and lesbians don't have any children "by accident". We are self-selected as better parents because we have to work a lot harder to get our kids. Anyone willing to jump through as many hoops as most gay people must to have a child is a person who is strongly motivated to parent.

In response to the anti-gay opinion piece, I wrote a letter to the editor of Time asking when I might expect an article by a Klu Klux Klan leader sharing his nuanced opinion of interracial marriage. Below is a better response that Time posted to its web site.

Two Mommies or Two Daddies Will Do Fine, Thanks

An advocate for gay families says James Dobson misuses science to sdiscredit same-sex parenting

By JENNIFER CHRISLER

Posted Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006

The strategies of religious and political extremists like James Dobson of Focus on the Family have become more nuanced of late. They have adjusted their language so that it is less vitriolic. They now utilize terms and approaches that often have a scientific-sounding overlay and are designed to appear more reasonable than those of their earlier efforts. They use the language of "concern" instead of the language of direct condemnation. They have had to make these adjustments because — as the lives of gay people and their families have gained visibility — the previous methods of attack lost their effectiveness. Nevertheless, the science they wield, if not unsound, is misconstrued. Responding to the news of the pregnancy of Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of the Vice President, Dobson, writing in a viewpoint in TIME magazine, put to work the time-worn tools of lies and distortion to make his argument that lesbian and gay parents are not able to provide environments for their children comparable in quality to those created by heterosexual parents.

These are the facts. According to the 2000 census, the vast majority — more than 75% — of American households differ in structure from two married, heterosexual parents and their biological children. We are a nation of blended and multi-generational families, adoptive and foster families, and families headed by single parents, divorced parents, unmarried parents, same-sex couples and more. Despite Dobson's assertions to the contrary, there is no single "traditional" family structure in the United States.

Moreover, despite Dobson's attempt to blame this reality on "no-fault divorce," this is not a new development. Over time and across cultures, the definition of family and the arrangements in which children have been raised have varied tremendously. Dobson's idea that the nuclear family is "supported by more than 5,000 years of human experience" and constitutes "the foundation on which the well-being of future generations depends" is simply not historically accurate.

Within his commentary, Dobson directly attributes some of the points of his argument to prominent psychologist and social researcher Dr. Carol Gilligan. However, when asked about his use of her research, Dr. Gilligan stated emphatically that its inclusion constitutes "a complete distortion of my work" and went on to say that there is nothing in her research that would support Dobson's stated conclusions.

It is true that there is 30 years of research about families headed by lesbian and gay parents. However, Dobson claims that the resulting data shows that "children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father." To say that Dobson is misinformed here would be inaccurate. He is simply lying. The people who are misinformed by these untruths are the readers of his material and those who publish his work without appropriately verifying his assertions. The fact is that research findings on these issues overwhelmingly testify to the success of gay families as nurturing environments for children's growth and development.

In terms of specific examples, Dr. Nanette Gartrell, former Harvard Medical School faculty and current Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, has conducted research on lesbian-headed families since the early 1980s. Gartrell's findings have proven that "in social and psychological development, the children [of lesbian parents] were comparable to children raised in heterosexual families." In addition, Dr. Charlotte Patterson, Professor of Psychology as the University of Virginia and respected family and child researcher, has determined that "there is no evidence that the development of children with lesbian or gay parents is compromised in any significant respect relative to that among children of heterosexual parents in otherwise comparable circumstances."

In addition, professional organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association and the National Association of Social Workers have all issued position statements supporting same-sex parents. The Child Welfare League of America says, "It should be recognized that sexual orientation and the capacity to nurture a child are separate issues." The American Psychological Association goes even further: "Not a single study has found children to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by gay and lesbian parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children's psycho-social growth. Gay and lesbian parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide healthy and supportive environments for their children."

The fundamental reality is that all parents, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, are linked in a very real way. We want our children to be safe, healthy and happy. When any of our families are politicized, it is an assault on our ability to protect ourselves, each other and our children. When people like Dobson profess "concern" for the welfare of children, while simultaneously attacking those very children's parents and family structures, their insincerity becomes evident. If their paramount focus is truly the health and well-being of children, then we invite Dobson and his colleagues to join our fight to ensure that all loving families are recognized, respected, protected and celebrated.
Jennifer Chrisler is the Executive Director of Family Pride, the nation's largest LGBT family advocacy group, and the mother of twin boys with her wife Cheryl Jacques. They reside in Washington, D.C.