Don't Our Families Have Value?
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Then there's our good friends Suzanna and Amy, who celebrated the birth of their first son last summer. They came over for dinner not too long ago and the love they had as a family was so evident. How could anyone look at them and not see value?

Or what about gay couple Kim and Jack, two more dear friends of ours? They are highly respected members of their community, active in the social and political life of their rapidly growing town. Kim has been influential in reinvigorating the once dying downtown as an arts district. His gift shop and art gallery has become the heart and soul of the neighborhood. No one could deny their value to the community, yet they can't legally marry.

Last April, I wrote a column titled "Courage to Grow Up." In it, I talked about how Jon and I were considering buying a house and that, while I didn't want children, I did hope we'd have an Old English Sheepdog someday.

Flash forward one year and call me Nostradamus. We've been in our new house for seven months and we've had our Old English Sheepdog (OES) for four. So much has changed since I wrote that column.

In many ways, I really do feel we grew up in that time -- adding that much responsibility more or less forces you to do so. One thing hasn't changed, though: We're just as much in love now as we've ever been. We're truly married in every way but legally. We may never have children or be political leaders in our community, but our family has value too.

Maybe that's the message we need to be focusing on these days. We can combat the bigotry of those who claim to fight for family values by showing them that our families have value as well. If more people see gay and lesbian families of all sorts, then maybe they will start to understand that we really just want the same things as anyone else. We want to protect our families and have our relationships respected. We don't want special rights. We want equal rights. We just want our families to be valued.

© Josh Aterovis, All Rights Reserved. Article provided by GayLinkContent.com