ABSTRACT
In the seventies we expressed ourselves sexually, in the eighties we were coupling up, and in the nineties we are having families. (Gay father, as cited in MalIon, 2004, p. 29)
Men [sic} make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past. (Karl Marx, 1963, p. 15)
Issues of gay parenting continue to evoke controversy in America. Considerable sectors of American society fail to recognize same-sex families while others wage battles in the popular press, legislative forums, and courts in order to prevent gay men and lesbians from having the legal right to rear children. Despite these obstacles, gay men and lesbians have created families through adoption and other assisted means and the definition of the family has changed substantially over the last few decades to include such family forms (Dunne, 2000; Mallon, 2000). Nevertheless, many gay men in America still automatically assume that fatherhood is not an option. In fact, many men view being gay as equivalent to being childless. For example, an openly gay man and father, Don, elaborates: "The coming-out process for me was not so much about people knowing I was gay as it was more about losing the idea of having children" (Mallon, 2004). Recent studies however, have highlighted that there are many gay-identified men living in America who would like to raise a child (Bryant & Demian, 1994; Sbordone, 1993). Furthermore, since the mid-1980s, gay men all over the country have been extending their imaginations to embrace the idea of attaining fatherhood through pathways other than heterosexual intercourse.
