I had no idea that Garrison Keillor was so bigoted against gay men in general and gay parents in specific. He obviously has had very litle exposure to any real gay parents. I for one will avoid him, his writings and his performances from now on.

Perhaps he should leave NPR and find a new home at Fox.

Dr. S

The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men -- sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control.

Next, we can read about how blacks cannot be good parents because they are all criminals, or how Hispanics cannot be good parents because they are too lazy.

I've come to expect more from Garrison Keillor. This essay is deeply disappointing. Mr. Keillor, I suggest you meet some actual gay parents at some point in the future. It might be an eye-opening experience.

Mr. Keillor's article seems, to me, to be horribly uninformed and misguided on the one hand, yet at the same time underscoring an important point that most adults today have lost sight of.

First of all, back when he was a kid (I'm assuming the 1950s), not EVERYONE had "a yard, a garage, a female mom, a male dad, and a refrigerator with leftover boiled potatoes in plastic dishes with snap-on lids." Many white middle-class Americans had this lifestyle, but not all people. What about African American families? They certainly weren't living this idyllic life in the 1950s while riding in the back of busses and drinking from separate water fountains! I will never understand why people today tend to glorify the 1950s the way they do...such a polarizing, repressed era. My point is, this ideal family structure which so many folks today are calling for a return to simply never existed.

Secondly, Mr. Keillor seems to think that his experience growing up with mixed gender married parents in a monogamous relationship (as far as he knows) proves that this arrangement is unequivocally the best environment in which to raise children. I'm sure there are many out there who could use their own home life situations to counter that point. A child needs more than the presence of a mother and a father to make a happy, healthy childhood.

Lastly, his comments about homosexuals are offensive and ill-conceived. I don't think I need to say any more about that.

However, I think Mr. Keillor makes one hell of a point when he says that the parents should remain in the background, "where they belong." Exactly Mr. Keillor! Too many parents today are so caught up in "finding themselves" and are primarily concerned with their own instant gratification. Parents today will never know what this does to their children. Being exposed to mothers making out with their new lovers like they're 15 years old, being shipped off every weekend to their father's house (who is also making out with this new lover like a 15 year old), dealing with the children and relatives of their parents' new partners--all this leaves an indelible mark and assures a child that he is not the number one priority in his parents' lives, as he or she should be. I believe strongly that once one has a child, that person's life should be devoted to that child, and any struggle for self-actualization (or whatever) should either be put on hold or at least hidden from plain view so that child can grow and prosper without undue burden. I think this may be the one thing that these white-middle class 50s parents at least seemed to be doing right--they put the focus on the kids and gave them an opportunity to grow up unfettered by their own personal issues, hang-ups and selfish desires.

I think most would agree that, no matter what the make-up of a family is (gay parents, straight parents, a single parent), let's just make it about the kids.

The color or style of your pants will never represent who you are on the inside. I hope you get cancer and die a slow painful death for being such a fucktard. And then, at your funeral, I hope a bunch of trannies and drunk flamboyant faggots dance on your grave to the most cliche disco anthem ever while tossing glitter in the air. It would serve you right for being such a closed minded homophobe!

Dear Mr. Kellior,

Last week my son and the other kids in Mrs. Hughes' 1st grade class room participated in Read Across America. He has a certificate, signed by the Cat in the Hat himself , mounted on a piece of red construction paper hanging on his bedroom wall to prove it. You didn't visit my son's classroom. I haven't asked him, but I think he's OK with that. I know I'm OK with it, because your humor-based bigotry is something that I want to keep him away from for as long as possible.

Like you, I grew up in a mixed gender marriage in a time and place where it seemed that everyone had a garage, a yard and lots of Tupperware. Back in the day, couples who divorces were shunned,women who had children out of wedlock were shamed, and homosexuals were unheard of. A lot has changed since then. Not only do we have telephones that we carry in our pockets, but we, us white middle class children of the suburb, have learned that even in the glorious days of our youth, there were people who didn't have yards, or garages or Tupperware. Heck! There are still people in the world who don't!

"Serial monogamy has stretched the extended family to the breaking point"? If gay men "want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control"? Are you suggesting that we go back to the closet and the days of shame? That people stay in marriages that just seem to drag on and on, one grey day after the next, for the sake of the children?

The kids that you saw last week, the kids from Africa and Asia, the kids who speak Spanish at home, the kids who have two moms or two dads, or a mom and a step dad, or a gran, are growing up in a world far wider then we could have imaged when we were children. And, if us parents do our jobs right, that wider world can be a place of love, acceptance and grace far greater then we ever dreamed possible. For my part, when my son and I are at the history center and we walk by your glass case, I'm going to do what I can to keep him from pressing your button. He doesn't need to hear your story. We've working really hard to get past it.