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ROBERT A. BERNSTEIN
Friday, August 08, 2008
“THERE
WASN’T
A
dry
eye
in
the
house.”
So
reported
Danielle
Silber
last
week
immediately
after
listening
to
a
panel
of
teenagers
field
questions
about
their
same-sex
parented
families
at
the
annual
Family
Week
in
Provincetown,
Mass.
The
youngsters,
she
said,
were
“insightful
and
inspiring.”
Silber,
now
25
and
an
associate
with
the
International
Rescue
Committee
in
New
York,
grew
up
in
a
Takoma
Park
home
with
two
gay
fathers.
As
a
dedicated
activist
for
gay
equality,
she
annually
conducts
workshops
at
Family
Week
for
Children
of
Gays
and
Lesbians
Everywhere
(COLAGE
),
of
which
she
is
a
former
national
board
member.
Children
of
same-sex
parents
now
number
in
the
millions.
Although
—
and
in
part,
because
—
they
are
themselves
overwhelmingly
heterosexual,
they
represent
a
potentially
massive
advocacy
force
for
gay
equality.
Last
week,
with
their
parents,
an
estimated
500
of
the
children,
including
many
from
the
Metro
area,
mingled
excitedly
at
the
Family
Week
festivities
staged
by
the
Family
Equality
Council.
About
half
of
them,
those
between
the
ages
of
eight
and
17,
took
part
in
the
COLAGE
workshops.
Despite
their
preponderant
heterosexuality,
all
of
them
have
felt
the
sting
of
societal
homophobia.
And
many
identify
closely
with
the
LGBT
community.
But
first,
most
pass
through
a
period
of
intense
personal
struggle,
beset
by
the
anti-gay
attitudes
in
schools,
youth
organizations,
churches,
and
society
at
large.
IRONICALLY,
LARGELY
IN
the
desire
to
protect
their
parents,
it’s
a
struggle
the
youngsters
often
are
afraid
to
talk
about
at
home
—
unlike
Joan
Garry’s
outspoken
kids,
as
described
in
her
most
recent
Blade
column.
Thus,
much
of
their
excitement
and
pleasure
at
Provincetown
comes
from
the
release
of
being
able
to
share
the
full
extent
of
their
feelings
and
travails
for
the
first
time,
with
similarly
affected
peers.
Danielle
Silber
knows
exactly
what
they’re
going
through.
Even
in
relatively
liberal
and
accepting
Takoma
Park
—
her
birth
mother
Sue
Silber
is
City
Attorney
there
—
Danielle
experienced
trauma
during
her
middle
school
years
because
of
the
nature
of
her
family.
Now
she
religiously
attends
Family
Week
each
summer,
largely
to
help
youngsters
transpose
their
repressed
pain,
as
she
did,
into
activism
and
advocacy.
Her
brother
Avi,
a
college
sophomore,
is
another
regular
workshop
leader.
Danielle
was
herself
a
teenager
when
her
parents
learned
for
the
first
time
—
via
national
television,
no
less
—
that
in
her
middle
school
years
she
actually
felt
ashamed
of
having
lesbian
mothers.
The
occasion
of
her
admission
was
an
interview
with
Barbara
Walters
on
ABC’s
20/20
show.
She
told
Walters
that
she
had
“put
on
a
happy
face”
at
home
because
she
didn’t
want
to
hurt
the
mothers
she
loved
and
knew
would
do
anything
for
her.
The
key
to
her
ultimate
openness
and
ardent
advocacy
was
the
family’s
first
visit
to
the
Provincetown
Family
Week
when
she
was
17,
which
she
says
“opened
a
whole
new
world”
to
her.
SIMILARLY
DEVOTED
TO
COLAGE
is
Ryan
LaLonde,
30,
art
director
of
a
D.C.
public
relations
firm,
who
recently
retired
as
the
organization’s
national
co-chair.
Although
raised
in
small-town
Michigan,
he
escaped
many
of
the
typical
travails
of
those
with
same-sex
parents.
That’s
because
he
was
born
into
a
traditional,
locally
respected
family,
and
the
respect
survived
his
parents’
non-hostile
divorce
when
his
father
took
a
male
partner.
Unlike
most
active
COLAG
members,
LaLonde
is
himself
gay.
While
he
had
to
pass
up
this
year’s
Family
Week,
it
was
for
a
reason
dear
to
the
COLAGE
heart:
He’s
on
paternity
leave
from
his
firm
and
has
just
become
part
of
a
likely
multi-generational
COLAGE
family.
As
he
excitedly
phrased
it
to
me
two
weeks
ago,
“My
partner
and
I
had
a
little
boy.”
Well,
he
and
Chris
Moody,
his
partner
of
more
than
12
years,
didn’t
exactly
“have”
the
little
boy.
Rather,
by
choice
of
the
birth
mother,
they
will
soon
formally
become
his
adoptive
parents.
Meanwhile,
in
lieu
of
attending
Family
Week,
they’ve
been
changing
diapers
and
adjusting
to
irregular
patterns
of
lesser
sleep.
So
the
infant
already
has
the
prerequisites
to
someday
become
another
effective
advocate
for
the
LGBT
community.
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