May 14, 2004  |  By: BRYAN ANDERTON  | COMMENTS     

When Matthew Boyer and Michael Sebastiani agreed to appear in an advertisement for Equality Virginia denouncing the recent passage of an anti-gay law in Virginia, they wanted to show that their entire family would be impacted. To get that message across, their two sons appeared in the ad with them.

But in the weeks before the ad was set to appear, they were faced with every gay parent’s nightmare: they discovered that their older son was being harassed at school for having two gay dads.

“It made me really upset. It made me feel guilty because my son was being caused pain because of the person who I love,” said Boyer, the 10-year-old boy’s biological father, who shares joint custody with the boy’s mother. He asked that his son’s name not be used in this article.

“I was obviously upset. I had hoped that it would be a little further down the road before we would have to deal with this. I immediately talked to him and tried to find out exactly what the situation was.”

The fifth-grader, who attends school in Fairfax County, Va., told Boyer he was being blackmailed and teased at school because his father is gay.

“[Another boy] basically said, ‘I’m going to tell everyone that your dad’s gay if you don’t do what I say,’” said Boyer, who works as a major gift officer at the Human Rights Campaign.

As a result of the harassment, Boyer and Sebastiani asked Equality Virginia to pull the ad after its scheduled one-time run in next week’s edition of the Washington Blade.

A similar ad, which features the couple with just their 2-year-old adopted son, has already been featured in several other publications, including the Advocate, and will be used in the future, according to Dylan Ward, a spokesperson for Equality Virginia.

Teasing starts early
According to Meredith Fenton, program manager for the national chapter of Children of Lesbians & Gays Everywhere, it is not uncommon for children of that age who have gay parents to be harassed at school. In fact, she said most harassment starts between fourth and sixth grades, when children begin understanding the concept of homosexuality.

“Even the real subtle homophobia that’s rampant in America’s schools affects them,” Fenton said. “Just by hearing someone say ‘that’s gay,’ … the student may internalize that they don’t want to talk about their families. That fear of harassment can cause kids to be nervous about being exposed, or to not want to talk about their families at all.”

But parents are not without options in situations like this. According to Robert Rigby, Jr., a spokesperson for the D.C.-area chapter of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, one important step parents can take is to start a dialogue with school teachers and administrators, and to let them know that there are families in their school that don’t necessarily fit the traditional “mother, father, two children” mode.

“I would recommend, first off, a meeting with the teacher and being open with the teacher about what your family is like, and what your child is hearing, and how you would like them to address it,” Rigby said. “The ultimate goal for an elementary school teacher is to be inclusive about all families when they talk about families. And they talk about families all the time in elementary school.”

Sebastiani said Boyer’s son’s problems can be traced back to the Virginia state legislature, which last month passed HB 751, a bill that would prohibit the recognition of any civil union, domestic partnership, or contract between same-sex couples that would give them rights similar to marriage. The ad in which the couple appears decries the law’s passage.

“People look at [this law] and say, ‘But we feel good in our world in Arlington,’” Sebastiani said. “That’s what we did. Then things like this come out, and we realize these things set a tone for all of Virginia.”

Bryan Anderton can be reached at banderton@washblade.com.