McCain can’t grasp dealing with modern parenting.
By Brandon Wolf
If Log Cabin Republican (LCR) apologists for Senator John McCain thought they could take the summer off, they will probably need to cut their vacations short. It’s time, once again, to get to work and figure out how to sell damaged goods to the GLBT community. In a mid-July interview with The New York Times, the presumptive Republican nominee stated, “I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family, so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.”
That statement may play well with the fundamentalist evangelical crowd, but Senator McCain is doing more than just alienating the GLBT community. He’s also showing his inability to change with the times and feel the pulse of mainstream America. Houston attorney Mitchell Katine, himself a gay father of two adopted children with partner Walter Avila, says that John McCain can’t grasp dealing with modern society. “He doesn’t grasp the importance of computers, and he doesn’t grasp the reality that gays are marrying, adopting, and raising families,” Katine told me recently.
Katine also says that he and the American Pediatrics Society both feel that children do better in a two-parent home, but that the emphasis should be on two parents, not on mother and father. Why two parents? “Because being a parent takes a lot of energy and involves elements of stress,” states Katine. “It really takes two, at the end of the day, to meet all the challenges of parenting with success.”
How do children with gay parents deal with their situation? Katine’s and Avila’s two children, Sebastian and Sebrina, cope just fine. At age two, they decided they didn’t have a Mommy, just a Daddy and a Poppy. However a year later, they came to understand that they did indeed have mothers, but that their mothers were not able to take of them and wanted them to be in a home where they would be loved and could grow. Times have definitely changed—Sebrina and Sebastian aren’t the only children at a school with gay parents. “It’s not a big deal anymore,” Katine says.
When Senator McCain’s recent remark about gay adoptions caused a furor of protest from GLBT groups, his image aides fell back on the age-old soft-shoe: “This issue should be left to the states to decide.” No doubt, the LCR tap-dancers are already practicing these steps for their fall “Vote for McCain—He Really Loves Us—Honest to God, He Really Does” show tune. But if you’re looking for a musical re-tread, I suggest that you stick with Xanadu on Broadway. The music is better, and the leading man is a knockout. The same can hardly be said for the Republican’s 2008 song and dance.
And, oh yeah. This year we have a choice. Senator Barack Obama has announced his full support for GLBT adoption rights.
Brandon Wolf founded the online group Houston Activist Network (Han-Net), which is now LoneStarActivists.
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