Judging from this email you all can guess where I stand on the subject, but I'd still like to hear from you. Just because you can't change my mind doesn't mean I won't listen!

I think I share a bit of Tony's question -- what exactly is it you are asking? -- but the general nature of the issue you are raising is interesting, so (caution be damned!) I'll just dive in....

I think I am about as far away from what you could characterize as a Bible-thumper as could be imagined. I'm not sure that means that I am somehow automatically tolerant, though, of those things that "bible thumpers" are perceived as intolerant of. We'll see.

Back in the 80s I worked an internship with a pediatric nurse practitioner (call her Nancy) in rural, rural Maine -- driving around in a Winnebago giving kids shots and doing hearing tests and such. One day driving back into Bangor she saw two women walking holding hands (Hell, they might have been from France for all we knew) and Nancy almost literally freaked -- went on and on about it for 30 minutes. I tried to gently say "good thing you don't live in my town (Boston) because you'd see that all the time" and basically I thought "Whoa, Nancy, what is your personal hang-up that you get so wound up about this??"

This is not to say that Jim was without his own discomforts. Aspects of homosexuality sat uncomfortably with me for a longer time than I might have guessed. Sorry if this is not PC, but *men* kissing?? Whoa.

Oh, well, I got over it. I went on to work with men and women who not only were in long-term partner relationships but who had both biological and adoptive children. One of these kids I remember was a "turkey baster baby" -- a biological child of a lesbian woman compliments of a donation from a gay man who did his thing in the kitchen while she waited in the living room.

Since then I have worked with more same-sex couples with kids (mostly adoptive) and what I was able to observe is that they were nice folks with nice kids. I think sexual orientation confers no immunity from the tribulations that anyone associates with traditional hetero marriage. Yes, same-sex couples get divorced, too.

After *all* of this, I still have a lingering doubt or two. Gay activists *demand* rights associated with traditional marriage or the rights to have kids, etc. There is still a teeny bit of the raised-by-Catholics Jim that says "Jeez, if you really think you have the right to have kids, then why don't you just have sex as defined in the playbook??" Yes, I saw a 40-ish woman at the store a few weeks ago with an infant in a baby carrier with a pink "Gayby" tag and asked myself "Is this how it is supposed to be?"

That being said, my conclusion is that the biological aspects are important, but not always primary. My friend's next-door neighbors are a late-to-the-fold (divorced from men) lesbian couple with a 17-year-old, most definitely heterosexual son who they adore (and who is a great kid!). If you met these folks, any idea that they had a hidden agenda to somehow convert their son to a particular sexual orientation would instantly evaporate. In the end, it seems like the imporant thing is that kids/people are nurtured and cared for. What I know is that the homosexual parents I've known would do a better job on that front than this heterosexual!

Does this in *any* way answer your question?