Earth to Family Research Council, 21st century calling

A follow-up to the A.P.B. I put out last Friday, and I’m happy to report, sisters and brothers, that love and reason prevailed. At least this morning they did.

Regular readers of this humble weblog will remember that I passed along the following news: Dr. Nanette Gartrell, principle investigator of the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (the longest-running, most academically robust study of the impact of lesbian family life on kids) would be interviewed on a call-in radio show this Monday. I was worried that the Family Research Council, against whose spokesperson she was to be squared off, would have had their people sermonize against The Gays and their spawn on Sunday, and that the switchboard at GreenStone Radio would have lit up like a Christmas tree and so forth.

But no.

I am proud to say that the only three callers that were on air were pro- The Gays and their spawn. The first was my beloved, bless her, who probably got through because of the overwhelming moral authority she posesses as one who was “raised by lesbians.” Though when she put it that way, it sounded a lot like she was “raised by wolves.” Considering that her mom founded and directed the feminist theater company At The Foot of the Mountain, whose zesty and ribald collective met in her house constantly, she kinda was raised by lesbian she-wolves. Plus also did I mention hippies.

But that’s another story altogether, and a fabulous one. Today’s story is about love and reason prevailing over hate and shoddy research.

So my beloved squeezed out a buncha good points about how she was “raised by lesbians” and she’s a fine, upstanding citizen, and her brother and sister didn’t turn out gay, if that’s what you’re worried about, etc.

Then Lisa, of the blog Lesbian Fatherhood, got through, and she made a buncha good points about how the reasearch that the FRC guy Mr. Sprig (his real name!) was citing confused the effects of divorce with the effects of being raised by two parents of the same sex. And that an intact family which began with two parents is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.

Hey, people, our gal at Lesbian Fatherhood is an ECON PROFESSOR! Don’t try to joust with statistics against an econ professor, Mr. Sprig! You got a Harvard/ UC San Francisco Med School prof on air on the one side of you, and this econ prof on the phone on the other side, dude. That would be DOCTOR Smart Lesbian to you! Back down now, sir, while you still have a shred of dignity intact! (Oops! Forgot: you shed that shred when you became veep for “policy” at FRC!)

Lisa wrote about the show and what he and she brought up on her blog this morning.

Okay, so then the third caller was a 45-year-old woman from Texas who was raised by two daddies, and she was heter-o-sexual, and loved ’em, and her “husband’s crazy about ’em.” Etc. A big ole love-fest. She said the only hard part about it was when she’d be teased at school by hateful kids, and she’d come home crying — you can imagine Texas back then, she said — and her daddies were wonderful. Oh, I might mention about now that the radio show host, Rolanda Watts, is an African American woman, and I bet she could imagine Texas back then, pretty vividly. Heck, we don’t have to go back earlier than 1998 and James Byrd.

My esteemed mother-out-law (aforementioned radical lesbian feminist theater legend she-wolf) called in but didn’t make it on air. Here’s why:

GreenStone Radio Call Screener: Hello, what would you like to say?

My mother out-law commences to describe herself as a grandmother, a lesbian, raised three kids, all are healthy & well-adjusted, etc. etc.

Screener: So you’re saying you’re FOR gay parenting.

Mother out-law: Yes, absolutely!

Screener: I’m sorry, we can’t put you on. We have too many other “FOR” people in line in front of you, and no one is calling in to speak against gay parenting.

Mother out-law: Maybe that’s because your guest Mr. Sprig is living in the 1950s, and the rest of us are in the twenty-first century!

Viva Mother Out-Law; Viva Lisa and my beloved and that gal from Texas; Viva Dr. Gartrell. And thank you Rolanda Watts, for gracefully piloting the frothy waters. Shallow though they were, given such a short show. Sure, it woulda played differently if this were on the 700 Club. But we take our moral support wherever and whenever it comes. I still think that in the long run, amor will vincit omnia.

[When the show is archived on GreenStone, I’ll put a link to it here.]