The 2012 presidential campaign is in full swing, with Republican hopefuls visiting state after state in hopes of securing their party's nomination. While this year seems much like any other -- with political pandering to the conservative base of the party -- the 2012 election has taken on new meaning in our household.
Let's back up for a moment. Some of you may know us as the Guncles (or Gay Uncles) from the reality show Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. If you're not, here's our mini bio. We're Scout Masterson and Bill Horn, two 30-something gay men who have been together for almost 10 years, live in L.A., run a successful PR/marketing firm, and adopted a baby girl, Simone Lynn Masterson-Horn, in 2010. It's the addition of Simone to our family that makes this election so problematic, because the homophobic, bigoted rhetoric that we've become accustomed to every four years will now affect our daughter.
We're both fairly politically minded. We read the paper. We vote. Bill was even a political science major in college, with aspirations of being in elected office one day. And we're no strangers to anti-gay rhetoric. Unfortunately, after a while many of us in the LGBT community almost become used to it. It wouldn't be a political debate if someone didn't take aim at marriage equity, or gays in the military, or the entire gay rights movement. But early this month we were both somewhat shocked and sickened when Rick Santorum suggested that it was so important for a child to have both a father and a mother that a father in jail was preferable to a same-sex parent. He told a crowd of voters in New Hampshire that allowing gays and lesbians to marry and have children is "robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have a right to." Since reading about Santorum's comments, we've been struck by how many things we do with baby Simone that wouldn't be possible if we were, in fact, in jail:
We think you probably get our point. Too bad Rick Santorum doesn't.
This political season, and the anti-gay rhetoric that comes along with it, is raising another troubling issue in our household: how do we explain homophobia to our daughter, and when do we do that? She's far too young to comprehend any of these complex issues right now, but is she old enough that every time a candidate is on TV complaining about gay rights or blasting gay marriage, we need to turn the TV off? We're big boys; we can take the criticism of our "lifestyle." We don't like it, but as adult gay men, we've grown accustomed to it. But Simone's just a little baby -- our little baby. It pains us both to know that one day she'll realize that people none of us have ever met think that our family is "less than" because it's a family with two same-sex parents. People who think, like Rick Santorum, that children like Simone would have been better served in life having a parent in jail rather than two dads are ignorant to the fact that kids need to be loved. Kids are best served by a parent or parents who are as present and loving as possible -- regardless of their sexual orientation.
Simone will be fine. We'll find a diplomatic way of teaching her about other people's hate and ignorance. But it sucks that we have to. Thanks, Rick.
The Guncles can be seen on Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood every Tuesday at 10 p.m. EST on Oxygen. Visit them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter @thebillhorn and @scoutmasterson.
Eliot Daley: Gov. Christie's Same-sex Marriage Referendum Trashes the Right to Love
Santorum will never be the nominee, he will never be president.
I believe many Republicans are repulsed by his opinions. Most Americans are moderates, either to the left or to the right of the moderation. There have only been 3 primaries in small states that are in no way representative of the diverse population of America. This support for Santorum, Gingrich and even Romney is coming from an extremely small base that has become so radical, so over-the-edge, they have destroyed any semblence of sanity left with the GOP. The GOP establishment knows it and they are scared.
Ban abortion, ban birth control, send the troops back to Iraq, privatize Medicare and Social Security, eliminate public education, eliminate all corporate regulation, eliminate taxes for the corporations and the rich, ignore science, continue to let our infastructure crumble??? The American people will NEVER stand for this. The way things are going now, President Obama is looking at a landslide victory in November along with the Dems regaining the House and solidifying the Senate.
That small percentage of Base GOPers are crazy. The rest of America is not.
Which is why it's a good thing that he's such a crummy pol :p
I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but every child could care less if the person who cares for and loves them is 500 pounds, disfigured, missing limbs, has Muscular Dystrophy, bald, smokes, hates pickles, is scared of bugs, christian, atheist, liberal, republican or gay! They want a sense of family. They want a sense of home. They want to know someone cares, loves them and actually gives a d@mn!
The main thing I've accomplished with my life is raising seven kids to adulthood by my gay old self: (six boys and one girl, gay and straight). They're biological, adopted and fostered (I forget which are which).
The kids have provided me with seven grandkids (five girls, two boys), and another one is expected in July (daughter has chosen a unisex name: Zyggy. I'm planning on buying the poor kid a copy of Billie Holiday's recording of "God Bless the Child").
Simone will let you know when it's time to explain about homophobia and everything else and you'll know what to tell her. I've had to answer questions about "Why do you live alone, Daddy?" and "Why aren't you and my mother married?" I've dealt with awkward sexual matters --- try explaining the concept of sister needing privacy to a houseful of boys --- and matters of hygiene. (One of the boys' bedrooms had to be painted because of the nasty locker room boysmell.)
I taught them about loyalty to each other; having self-respect; thinking through a conflict rather than fighting; and being able to laugh at the world. Every step of the way, I was winging it --- like most parents, I had no idea what I was doing.
You'll learn from Simone as much as she learns from you. And the haters --- well, they can't be ignored, but we all know they're losing the war. Love trumps hate.
Rocky
This isn't religion or some hard-to-defend belief system that we are faced with in this dilemma - it's pure science: We are biological males and females, married to one another as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers to offspring who are our own genetic descendants. We value this if only because the future of the human species (dare I say civilization itself?) depends on it. Though we are mortal, we hope to achieve "immortality" through our children and their children forever - and genetically speaking, this isn't some impossible fantasy!
I suspect both of you are yourselves the product of the same kind of biologic relationship, so how can you compare your family as the moral and social equivalent of the traditional family?
And how do we explain and justify the gay family fantasy to our children? The science just isn't there to guide us to an easy answer. We will just tell our children that the gay "family" is a social and political construct which recognizes homosexual couples who have adopted . . .
-Have you ever heard of planetary over crowding or have any idea how many children are in the care of social services that would love parents of any sex?
"Though we are mortal, we hope to achieve "immortaliÂty" through our children and their children forever "
-Speak for yourself some of us arent so vain
"and geneticallÂy speaking,"
-I guess you'll discount every family that chooses to adopt as flawed not as good a others, even if someone were so vain and need to needlessly pass on your genes theres surogates.
"And how do we explain and justify the gay family fantasy to our children?"
- hows this 'when two people love each other they get married, if they are a man and a woman and they love each other they create a baby, if they're two dads or two moms and they love each other they can find a little boy or girl that needs a family like they need a son or daughter'
"how can you compare your family as the moral and social equivalent of the traditionaÂl family?"
- They are two adults who love each other, got married had kids (method isnt important) who they love and raised, who'll go to school, probably attend college, fall in love someday get a job, grow up marry. How is this different from a hetero family?
Both seem contrary to your Puritan views of relationships.
At least explaining gay families can be taught as a positive that two people of the same sex are attracted to one another and love each other.
The concept of divorce and adultery advice might come better from.......sorry, but being a good Christian gay man, I can't say it. But divorce and adultery is a negative.
Gay marriage/families are a positive.
Not only is it unconscionable that in 2012, men seeking the highest position in the free world seek to publicly degrade your family to score political points, but it is just as unconscionable that the citizenry continues to participate in it, as well.
You and your family have the right to live your lives in peace, free from immoral attacks by the leaders and citizens around you.
Hang in there.
And while you're hanging in there, you'll also be teaching those around you that seek to degrade you how a TRUE family conducts itself.
Best to you.
Good luck to this family..Unfortunately many families with a man and woman could only HOPE to be as good as this one..
Shame on Santorum..what a demi-god...;-)
Hopefully when your daughter is raising her own children this will be even less of a hot button issue and Santorum will not be looked back upon any more favorably than George Wallace.
Ya never know what the future brings....A child can never have TOO much love..
Right? ;-)