Parents of gay children may go through an adjtment perd when they fd out their child is gay, but there is support for parents of gay children.
Contents:
- GRANDMA GIV BIRTH AT 61 SO HER GAY SON AND HIS HBAND N HAVE A BABY
- TO HELP GAY SON, 61-YEAR-OLD WOMAN GIV BIRTH TO OWN GRANDCHILD
- HOW ONE MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER GAY SON STARTED A REVOLUTN
- PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE
- SALLY FIELD ON BEG A MOM WHO SUPPORTS HER GAY SON SPOILER ALERT
GRANDMA GIV BIRTH AT 61 SO HER GAY SON AND HIS HBAND N HAVE A BABY
New grandmother Cecile Eledge livered her granddghter to help her gay son, Matthew Eledge, and his hband, Ellt Dougherty, Omaha, Nebraska. * mom has baby for gay son *
The uple planned to fd another surrogate to liver the child, but they found the procs nfg and weren’t pletely nfint about navigatg vro fertilizatn as gay men. Matthew Eledge, left, his mother, Cecile, and his hband, Ellt Dougherty, greet baby Uma last Panowicz / via AP“Nebraska is a b more nservative, and we were hant to go to agenci, and had a b of fear that maybe some thgs would hold back beg a gay uple, ” Matthew Eledge ’s when Cecile offered to be the uple’s gtatnal rrier.
TO HELP GAY SON, 61-YEAR-OLD WOMAN GIV BIRTH TO OWN GRANDCHILD
When a gay Nebraskan uple sought reproductive assistance, their fay stepped . * mom has baby for gay son *
A 61-year-old Nebraskan mother acted as a surrogate for her gay son and his hband and gave birth to their baby girl (her granddghter) Uma on Monday, acrdg to BuzzFeed hbands Matthew Eledge, 32, and Ellt Dougherty, 29, were searchg for a surrogate to rry their child, Eledge's mother, Cecile Eledge, offered to do so.
Meanwhile, Dougherty's 25-year-old sister, Lea Yribe, offered to donate her eggs, which were fertilized wh Matthew Eledge's uple weled the help of fay light of antigay discrimatn Matthew Eledge had faced at his job. ’"Cuttg down the fancial burn and easg some possible legal plitns as a gay uple were two reasons was helpful to have Cecile rry the baby and Yribe, Dougherty's sister, donate the egg, acrdg to Dougherty and Matthew. She was rryg a piece of orange poster board wh a msage hand-lettered black marker: “PARENTS of GAYS: UNITE SUPPORT fOR oUR CHILDREN.
They asked if they uld kiss her; they asked if she would talk to their parents; they told her that they uldn’t image their own mothers and fathers supportg them so publicly, or supportg them at woman’s name was Jeanne Manford, and she was marchg alongsi her twenty-one-year-old gay son, Morty. The anizatn they dreamed up that day, which started as a sgle support group Manhattan, was ially lled Parents of Gays; later, was renamed Parents FLAG, for Parents and Friends of Lbians and Gays; nowadays, is known only as PFLAG.
HOW ONE MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER GAY SON STARTED A REVOLUTN
The same year Avril was born, Morty’s psychiatrist summoned Jeanne and Jul to his office and rmed them that their beloved goln boy and sole survivg son was the bt of her knowledge, Jeanne Manford had never known anyone who was gay.
”There was no mystery about what that kd of tradnal, law-abidg woman was supposed to thk about gay people 1968. At the time, homosexual acts were crimal forty-ne stat, wh punishments rangg om f to prison time, cludg life sentenc. Polil anizg was virtually impossible—one early gay-rights group that attempted to officially rporate New York was told that s mere existence would vlate state sodomy laws—and posive cultural reprentatn was all but nonexistent; there were no openly gay or lbian policians, punds, relig lears, actors, athlet, or micians the mastream.
Newspapers ed the words “homosexual” and “pervert” terchangeably, and the handful of gay people who appeared on televisn to discs their “life style” almost always had their fac hidn shadows or otherwise obscured. In 1974, when “The Pat Colls Show” aired a segment on parents of gay children, the host troduced by sayg, “Even if he mted murr, I gus you’d say, ‘Well, he’s still my child, no matter what.
PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE
’ But suppose your child me to you and said, ‘Mother, Dad, I am homosexual.
”You uld f most of the solar system to the chasm between how the average Amerin of the era would have reacted that hypothetil suatn and how Jeanne Manford rpond upon learng that Morty was gay. Not for a moment did she wonr, as the otherwise supportive Jul ially did, if his gayns reflected some failg of theirs as parents.
Later, after he went to llege at Columbia and me to terms wh beg gay, the steady, unfsy love of his fay seemed tepid pared wh his own creasg radilism. The first time he attend a gay-rights prott, he wore sunglass and turned away om the news meras, but he soon beme, his sister Suzanne (now Suzanne Manford Swan) told me, “unaaid and unstoppable.
SALLY FIELD ON BEG A MOM WHO SUPPORTS HER GAY SON SPOILER ALERT
” An eighteen-year-old regular at the Stonewall Inn, Morty was there when a fight broke out between patrons and the police the summer of 1969, an event that talyzed the gay-rights movement. The followg year, after jog the brand-new Gay Activists Alliance, he began anizg polil monstratns, then dropped out of llege to do so full time.
Not long after, he was arrted for refg to move when police tried to shoo him off a stoop on Christopher Street, the heart of the Greenwich Village gay scene. : Bella Abzug, the firebrand femist who would help troduce the first feral gay-rights bill.