Proud Parenting

LGBTQ Parents - Lesbian Moms & Gay Dads

Lesbian surrogate will lead South Carolina Equality

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After giving birth as a surrogate for her two gay friends, Utah’s Rep. Christine Johnson is moving to South Carolina – to head South Carolina Equality. This month, she gave birth to the baby, a boy. Johnson reports the infant is healthy and at home with his dads, both close friends of hers. She plans to maintain an aunt-like relationship with the child, who is the biological son of Johnson and one of the two gay men.

“It doesn’t feel like giving the baby away,” Johnson said in an interview. “It feels like sharing the way we have intended to share.”

“I’m feeling really excited about my new responsibilites and the opportunity to create some positive change in another conservative state,” said Johnson, who plans to return to Utah in the future to visit friends and the baby.

1/9/2010
Utah’s Rep. Christine Johnson a surrogate for gay couple

Lesbian lawmaker – Rep. Christine Johnson – announced she’s a surrogate, carrying a baby for two male friends who happen to be gay.

The Salt Lake City Democrat says she decided to become artificially impregnated with one of the men’s sperm after they expressed frustration over the difficulty of adopting a child in Utah. Utah law prohibits unmarried couples from adopting and does not recognize gay marriage.

The 41-year-old Johnson, who has a 17-year-old daughter from a 2-year marriage, is four months pregnant and expecting on June 21. Johnson offered to be a surrogate at no cost to save the Salt Lake County men the prohibitive cost of hiring one.

Surrogacy helps gay fathers realize their dreams

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“Our journey to parenthood was not easy, cheap or fun. The result, however, has been the most amazing experience in the world; being called Daddy and Dad by our loving daughter,” so says Tommy Starling and Jeff Littlefield – of South Carolina.

TheState.com profiles the Starling-Littlefield family along with some hopeful news about the growing number of surrogates helping gay men realize their dream of fatherhood.

Starling said he and Littlefield had tried previously to adopt a child in South Carolina but encountered anti-gay hostility and instead opted to become parents through a surrogacy program run by Los Angeles-based Growing Generations.

Since 1996, it has matched hundreds of gay men with surrogate mothers who are paid to carry an implanted embryo produced from a donor egg fertilized with the client’s sperm.

Image: Growing Generations

IT DIDN’T HAPPEN: South Carolina son charged with filing a false police report

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On July 22, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department charged an 18-year-old gay man with filing a false police report after he accused his father of assault.

“After conducting a thorough investigation and the lack of any forensic evidence to support the allegation of the assault, Dwight Clark Ables has been charged with 1 count of Filing a False Police report. He turned himself in today at the Anderson County Sheriff’s office,” read a press release from the Department’s Public Information Officer Suzanne Griffin.

Ables is currently being held at the Anderson County Detention Center where he awaits a bond hearing.

7/18/2008
South Carolina: Straight dad beats gay son with baseball bat. Chases boy from home

An 18-year-old returning from a Pride festival in South Carolina was assaulted by his father with a baseball bat.

IndependentMail.com [in Anderson, South Carolina] reports:

“During the assault, the teen’s 49-year-old father yelled, cursed, swung a baseball bat, prayed and tried to ‘cast the demon of homosexuality out of him’…

“The teen told deputies that his father ‘has a problem with him being gay and that is why he hit him with the baseball bat Sunday’…”

South Carolina school principal to resign after gay club approved

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The Associated Press is reporting on the principal of a South Carolina high school who plans to resign because his school district supports the formation of an outreach group for gay students and their friends.

“Irmo High School principal Eddie Walker confirmed Wednesday he is stepping down at the end of the 2008-09 school year. Walker said he gave his reasons in a letter sent to teachers and others and he refused to talk about the issue further. In a copy of the letter obtained by WIS-TV in Columbia, Walker said allowing the Gay-Straight Alliance club on campus would conflict with his professional beliefs and religious convictions because there are no other clubs on campus based on sexual preference or activity and the school teaches abstinence-based sex education.”

Walker wrote: “I feel the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance club at Irmo High school implies that students joining the club will have chosen to or will choose to engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, opposite sex, or members of both sexes.”

According to the AP, Lexington-Richland School District 5 couldn’t stop the club from forming because federal law prohibits discriminating against a club based on its purpose. The district would have had to ban all clubs from campus or face a lawsuit it would likely lose if it kept the club from the school.

Faith in America said Walker’s decision is based on prejudice that is harmful to students and likened his decision to policies that once allowed segregation to flourish.

Young lesbians and gays reach out to each other in Savannah and the Lowcountry. Group launches billboard campaign.

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Anne Hart, from Southern Mamas blog, wrote a great piece for the Savannah Morning News about a group of young people who are reaching out to each other for support.

Stand Out Youth offers fellowship and resources to LGBT youth between the ages of 16 and 23. Each week, young men and women from southeast Georgia and the South Carolina Lowcountry gather to talk about coming out, family and religion under the guidance of adult volunteers. Volunteer staff must undergo a background check, drug screening, and training.

Hart writes:

“Not only are the members tired of being called “faggot,” “queer” and “dyke” on a regular basis. They’re also weary of such harassment being accepted by those of us in the mainstream straight community.

“Listening to their stories told in sometimes shaking voices, often on the verge of tears, would elicit compassion from even the most homophobic person.

“Anyone who thinks sexual orientation is a matter of mere personal choice, not a matter of genetics, just needs to hear one Stand Out Youth teen recount how he struggled for years before accepting he was gay.”

Many Stand Out Youth members are victims of bashing – while teachers looked the other way. Some kids say administrators suggested they encouraged the taunting by their own actions.

Hart points out that many homophobes hide behind a religious or cultural tradition that says homosexuality is wrong. And, unfortunately this group of people believe and hope that gay people can find their way back to heterosexuality.

Anne refers to herself as a work-at-home mom, who freelances for various publications – including writing a regular weekly column in the Sunday Accent section of the Savannah Morning News.

Stand Out Youth has launched a billboard campaign. Throughout this month and next, several billboards across Savannah will promote awareness and provide Stand Out Youth contact information.