Father's Day and Gay Pri Month ci for a reason my fay

Contents:

• 20 FAMO GAY DADS TO CELEBRATE FATHER'S DAY & PRI MONTH
• 'LOVE ALWAYS WS': GAY FATHERS DISCS JOYS AND CHALLENG OF PARENTG MORN AMERI
• FATHER’S DAY FOR GAY BOYS
• ‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD
• MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI

20 FAMO GAY DADS TO CELEBRATE FATHER'S DAY & PRI MONTH

In late 1980, at a support group for gay fathers, my dad met Lnel –– the man wh whom he would spend the next 23 years. He had seemed kd of lost his new life – phg 60, recently divorced om my mother, recently out of the closet as gay man.

He asked that I march wh him, alongsi the other gay fathers and their kids, the Los Angel Pri Para. What I do remember was that someone had ma T-shirts that said "I LOVE MY GAY DAD" and I refed to wear one.

I told my dad, “I love you, but not bee you’re gay. ” The tth, though, is that I lacked the urage to stand all the way up for my father and his ras agast a homophobic and different world.

'LOVE ALWAYS WS': GAY FATHERS DISCS JOYS AND CHALLENG OF PARENTG MORN AMERI

I probably left my "I LOVE MY GAY DAD" T-shirt next to the box had e out of, though I might have taken home wh me and buried a drawer.

Pete Wilson’s office, or at the Natnal March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay dad and his hband lost a lot of iends to AIDS. Even when I was an obnox 22-year-old and wouldn’t put on a T-shirt to clare, unashamed, unembarrassed and unapologetic, that I love my gay dad.

FATHER’S DAY FOR GAY BOYS

To much of the natn, the flags reprent gay pri — a month voted to the celebratn and support of gay rights. For me, those brightly lored flags reprent my father me out as gay when I was 5 years old. My father would later tell me he knew he was gay for as long as he uld remember.

And workg to keep one foot his “old” world — rated salman, volved father — and one foot his new gay liftyle, he was somethg of a pneer. Makg matters more difficult, my father was fg that new path the 1980s durg the natn’s AIDS crisis, when homophobia and the celty and ignorance of large swaths of Amerins were at heightened levels.

There were members of our muny who lerally thought that sharg a meal wh a gay person or swimmg the same pool uld prove adly. But step by step, my father ched forward, blendg his worlds, slowly but surely helpg those around him to unrstand that beg gay wasn’t somethg to be feared, that beg a dad and beg gay weren’t mutually exclive. Through his actns, my father shattered one stereotype after another, showg those around him that he uld be gay and love the Green Bay Packers, that he uld be gay and be a proud ary veteran, that he uld be gay and be an expert wh tools and lawnmowers and Weber grills.

‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

For much of his life, he even showed that he uld be gay and be a rd-rryg my father found his footg, he troduced me to parts of his new world.

MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI

After my long days at the library, he’d take me out to some of his favore gay bars, notably a pair of piano bars Greenwich Village. After the ceremony at New York’s Cy Hall, our four children joed a celebratory meal for children have always been very acceptg of my dad beg gay and never saw as particularly noteworthy — was simply a fact of summer morng, my 9-year-old son announced he wanted to make a rabow flag for Opa.

When I was growg up, nobody was supposed to be gay. And grandpas who were gay had to live their whole liv pretendg they were someone they weren’t. Or if they had the urage to be openly gay, there’s a good chance they never got to see their grandchildren grow up.