Most commonly, a major shift in the culture occurs over a considerable period of time, with incremental steps building towards fundamental change. Other shifts come with lightening speed, riding the crest of cultural change and building momentum with swift measures.
The rapid success of the homosexual movement amounts to something of a cultural Blitzkrieg. As the society changes its view of homosexuality, the fundamental institutions of marriage and family are also being unavoidably rearranged. A radical alteration in a culture's moral framework inevitably transforms the most basic institutions of social structure.
Recent evidence of such a fundamental rearrangement was announced by New York magazine in its November 3, 2003 cover story on the "Gay Baby Boom." The cover featured a male homosexual couple holding two, presumably adopted children. The cover promised an article that would explain, "How kids are shaking up gay life in the city."
The article, "Gay with Children," by David Usborne begins with this declaration: "Even ten years ago, the only certain thing about a gay couple's future was that it wouldn't include children. But gays and lesbians are now becoming parents in record numbers, and its changing how they think about themselves--and each other."
Usborne takes us to the Bleecker Street playground in Greenwich Village. This playground in the West Village area "may not be representative of all city playgrounds, but it arguably the epicenter of a seismic change in gay New York, as a growing number of same-sex couples have been plunging into parenthood."
With or without gay marriage, these homosexual couples, made up of homosexual men and lesbians, are adopting or producing children at a rate that has captured media attention.
Of course, these children cannot be produced by normal reproductive means, which requires heterosexual union. Usborne explains: Typically, "the men are either adopting or hiring surrogate mothers, the women buying donor sperm and being inseminated or adopting."
According to the article, this is becoming so common in New York that residents are no longer shocked or surprised. David Schutte and partner Rob Levy have adopted Ethan, now five years old. "You cannot overestimate the savviness of New Yorkers," remarked Schutte. "Gay or straight they get it immediately. Women come up to us and say, 'Oh, did you guys adopt?'" The New York article is primarily concerned with the changes children are bringing to the gay lifestyle. Rob Levy remarked that Ethan has become the "mascot" of their neighborhood.
The cover story in New York magazine comes over a decade after the emergence of another major cultural symbol, the children's book Heather Has Two Mommies. Written by Leslea Newman, Heather Has Two Mommies emerged as a colorful and controversial signal of a cultural revolution. The idea of gay adoption and the innovation of lesbian couples having children by artificial insemination was still considered exotic at that quaint time--but no more.
Newman wrote her book, intending to help children parented by gay couples to come to terms with their family status. As she later explained, "a woman stopped me on the street and asked me to write a book about a family like hers: two happy dykes and their daughter. I fulfilled the woman's request with a book about little Heather, how has two elbows, two earlobes, two kneecaps, and two mommies."
Indeed, Heather's two mommies, Mama Jane and Mama Kate, decided that Jane would become a mother. Mama Kate is a doctor, while Mama Jane is a carpenter. At age three, the book tells us that Heather's mommies "take turns taking care of her." She plays with both mothers and they do many fun things together.
After joining a playgroup, Heather discovers that some of the other children have daddies. "I don't have a daddy," reports Heather. "She'd never thought about it before. Did everyone except Heather have a daddy? Heather feels sad and begins to cry." Mama Kate and Mama Jane comfort Heather with the assurance that "Not everyone has a daddy." As the children begin to relate their various families' structure, Stacy proudly reports, "I don't have any mommies. I have two daddies." Other children draw pictures of various family structures, ranging from heterosexual families to every conceivable homosexual alternative.
