Helen: My son lives with us, but he regularly goes over to his dad's.

Margaret: He spends every Wednesday night, every Friday night and every other weekend with his father, but this is what he considers home.

Helen: He's eleven. Margaret is part of his family. He says he has two moms, and he has a father and a half-brother. That's his family. In school, when he draws pictures, it's me and Margaret, his father and his step-mother, him and his half-brother, and all the pets.

Margaret: A few months ago, he said something about "queers". I looked at Helen after he had left and said, "You know, I think we're creating a monster here, because that's the only group we never speak of." We never make a big deal about it when we see anti-gay people on TV. We just keep quiet. When we see things on TV prejudiced against Jewish people or Blacks, we always comment, but whenever a gay thing came on, we'd say nothing.

I think it was because we didn't want to be viewed as indoctrinating him, but I didn't hesitate to stand up quite adamantly for every other minority in the world. So now, we're making an effort to speak about it when it's on TV, like we would about any other group, and he's obviously changed his view.

He hadn't really thought it was bad, but he was getting into that adolescent thing of "they're all fags." He's never come out and asked about our relationship, and we've never come out and told him, but he and his mother have a wonderful, open relationship. They talk about sex and anything else that needs to be talked about.

Helen: He came close the other night. I thought it was going to happen.

Margaret: Barbara Walters was on, and she interviewed Garth Brooks. We all watched it. Garth Brooks has this record that more or less says, "Let everybody be who they want to be." Barbara Walters said to him, "Well, did you think of gays when you were saying that?" He said, "Yes, actually, it's not any secret, my sister's a lesbian. I love my sister, and I think anybody can love whoever they want to."

Paul watched that. Then they went on to Sharon Stone, and they asked her about "Basic Instincts" and the bisexual character. Barbara Walters said, "Does it bother you that people might think you're bisexual?" Sharon basically said the same thing, "I have no problem with it. Whoever anybody wants to love, it's their own business," So, we were inundated with it. He was sitting there. Helen was ironing and I'm looking out of the corner of my eye at him, wondering what's he thinking about all this.

All of a sudden, he got real quiet, and he was looking at us. I could see him looking at both of us, and Helen said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Oh, I'm thinking and thinking." It was like a lightbulb came on.

Helen: He really had that look like, "Oh, wow! I think I just figured it out." 

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