NEWSBYDANIEL VIVACQUA

There are several ways to start a family. Some families are made when groups of people find each other and create a bond that doesn't come naturally in their biological families. Some families are made without any expectation of their coming about, like through unexpected pregnancy, or relatives becoming the guardians of children when their parents unexpectedly pass away.

But many families start out in a pretty traditional way: marriage. The typical family begins when two people fall in love and decide to spend their lives together. They form a commitment to each other and decide to become each other's family, sometimes having kids, sometimes having pets, and sometimes having just each other.

We in the LGBT community have been told that our desire to start our families with marriage threatens the "traditional" American family. And a lot has been written about why marriage equality is important, and studies have been done proving that gay families are just as healthy and loving and nurturing as our heterosexual counterparts. We could all probably go on forever about this.

But it becomes a little more personal for me this year. My partner of five years and I are less than a month away from our commitment ceremony. Sure we've been together for half a decade, but if things go the way I hope, we're still just at the very beginning of our life together. So what do we, a couple of guys in our mid-20s, have to look forward to as we start our family?

Recently, a sad story of anti-gay discrimination came out of the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. St. Paul Elementary in Hingham, Massachusetts was given the opportunity to provide an education to a young boy whose mothers wanted him to go to a Catholic school. But the principal told the moms that, because they live in "discord" of God's laws, their son would not be admitted.

On May 13, Dr. Mary Grassa O'Neill, Secretary for Education and Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese, released a statement that condemned the decision of the staff at St. Paul's. "We believe," says O'Neill, "that every parent who wishes to send their child to a Catholic school should have the opportunity to pursue that dream." Dr. O'Neill also indicated that she will work to prevent "misunderstandings" like this in the future, and explicitly states, "The Archdiocese does not prohibit children of same-sex parents from attending Catholic schools."

I've gone on record before defending Catholics in regards to their reputation with the LGBT community. I believe that there are a lot of Catholic people out there who support queer people. However, I strongly disagree with the Catholic institution in its treatment of the gay and lesbian community. One need not look far to see examples of Vatican-style homophobia, like the Pope telling Portugal that gay marriage will kill their society. And, of course, Boston Cardinal O'Malley released a statement full of double-speak that supported the decision of Fr. James Rafferty, the priest who opted to exclude this student from school.

When Newsweek writer Ramin Setoodeh wrote an article about how gay actors can never convincingly play straight, I bet he wasn't thinking he'd get a response from the beloved star of screen and stage, Kristin Chenoweth. Then again, one wonders if he was thinking at all.

Setoodeh writes that, in his opinion, gay actors never quite seem to pull off playing the heterosexual love interest. Speaking specifically of Sean Hayes (of Will & Grace fame) playing opposite Kristin Chenoweth in the Broadway show Promises, Promises, the writer says, "[I]t's weird seeing Hayes play straight. He comes off as wooden and insincere, like he's trying to hide something, which of course he is."

I wonder if he feels the same way about, say, Ralph Fiennes playing Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies. Fiennes, one presumes, is a perfectly nice guy and most likely not an evil wizard. And yet we the viewers embrace his performance and suspend disbelief for the sake of our entertainment. So why can't we say the same about Cynthia Nixon, who Setoodeh suggests only gets away with her heterosexual role as Miranda on Sex and the City because she was married to a man when she began the role?

Luckily, the LGBT community has a champion in Kristin Chenoweth, the actress who plays Hayes's love interest in Promises, Promises. Chenoweth eloquently and passionately respond to Setoodeh's article.

"From where I stand, on stage, with Hayes, every night," Chenoweth says, "I’ve observed nothing 'wooden' or 'weird' in his performance, nor have I noticed the seemingly unwieldy presence of a ‘pink elephant’ in the Broadway Theater. (The Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Tony members must have also missed that large animal when nominating Hayes’ performance for its highest honors this year.)"

She goes on further to say that Setoodeh's article "offends me because I am a human being, a woman and a Christian."

A few weeks ago, we featured a piece about how there needs to be more queer superheroes in the comic book world. DC Comics responded (coincidence?) by announcing the launch of a Batwoman ongoing comic. And now I've come to find out that the ongoing Justice League comic will be featuring a queer male character!

I swear, the people at DC Comics love me. Or at least gay comic geeks.

Now you might not have heard of Mikaal Tomas, and neither had I until a little over a year ago. He was featured in a Justice League miniseries called Cry for Justice, but I thought it was going to be a small little story and then he would fade back into obscurity. But lo and behold James Robinson, writer of several comics (and my new hero), has decided to add Mikaal, now calling himself Starman, to the roster of the big league (forgive the pun) most important superhero team in DC Comics.

Why is this important?

If you're a nerd like me, you've probably read some fan fiction in your life. If you're not familiar with fan fiction, it's pretty easy to explain. Let's say you're a big fan of something, like Star Wars, and you love Han Solo so much that you can't stand the idea of never experiencing his charm again. This inspires you to write your own stories about Han Solo and his adventures, and thus you, a FAN, have created a new FICTION featuring the character.

Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction in which two characters of the same sex end up being romantically involved. Usually (almost exclusively) these characters are straight in their respective universes, but engage in boy-on-boy or girl-on-girl action in these stories. Popular pairings are Kirk and Spock from Star Trek, Harry Potter and Snape from Harry Potter (which I find particularly maddening), Sam and Dean Winchester (brothers!) from Supernatural (this particular pairing is often referred to as "Wincest"), and Aragorn and Legolas from the Lord of the Rings. Slash fiction is named after it's use of the "/" — you find out which characters are hooking up by seeing the "/" between their names, a la "Superman/Batman." Slash is usually about two men, so much so that lesbian slash fiction has its own name — femslash.

My friend (and editor) Mike just posted on Change.org a sad story about an attack on gay hospital patients, and then I went and read this tragic story. Clay, 77, and Harold, 88, have been together for over twenty years, living in Sonoma County, CA. They had their legal affairs in order — rights of attorney, wills, all that business.

Then Harold fell down the stairs of their home. He was taken to the hospital, but since Clay and Harold had it all covered, they weren't worried that they would be prevented from seeing each other. But no, Clay was denied the opportunity to see Harold in the hospital.

And it gets worse.

It seems as though DC Comics read my Superqueeroes post on here. Batwoman, it was announced, will be getting her own ongoing series.

The series will be both written and drawn by J.H. Williams, the artist who drew most of the Batwoman story that was featured in Detective Comics. Williams will be co-writing the series with W. Haden Blackman, who has won awards for his video game writing for the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game.

What's really exciting about all of this is the fact that DC had some really pro-gay things to say about this launch. DC is fully aware of the impact of having a lesbian superhero with her own ongoing comic. Dan Didio, the Senior Vice President and Executive Editor at DC Comics, says, "We’re all extremely proud of what Batwoman stands for — both as a compelling character and as an icon representative of the diversity we strive for in the DC Universe.”

So I'm going to come right out and admit it — I'm biphobic. It's not something to be proud of and it's something I know I need to work on, which is the reason I decided to write this piece. The more I read about bisexuality, the more I realize that I'm wrong and the more I come to terms with the reasons why I might feel the way I do.

I picked up this book, Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out, and started reading parts of it. I realized that biphobia comes from two populations — us queers and them there straights. I know that my biphobia comes from this idea that bisexual people can, at any time, shed the weight of being queer and live a heterosexual life. It's as if they get the benefits when they want them but don't have to bear the burden if they don't want to.

And then I read this; "... we consider sexuality to be an essence, an unchanging core identity, and the way that lesbian and gay communities have adopted this view ... has led to a great deal of lesbian and gay biphobia." That's a quote by Amanda Udis-Kessler from her contribution to the book, a piece called "Present tense: Biphobia as a crisis of meaning." It makes me think of that thing we do when we say "I'm a gold-star lesbian woman/gay guy," proud to have never been corrupted by the ickyness of heterosexuality. It gives us an identity as separate, forming a community of oppressed people that can band together against those hateful straights. If our same-sex attraction is intrinsic to who we are, then we can't be attacked or blamed for it, and we have to come together to defend it. But if sexuality is fluid and flexible, if people can be bisexual, then does that call into question the essential nature of being queer?

When I say “Catholic Church” and “homosexuality,” you probably think that the two don’t go together. In fact, you probably think that the Catholic church is outright homophobic and hateful toward gay people. Or you at least you think that the Church doesn’t look favorably upon us queers.

So it might surprise you to know that the Catholic church says some pretty respectful things about gay people. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops put out a document called Always Our Children in 1997. This document was created to encourage the parents of adolescents and young adults who come out to love and care for their children. Here’s a link.

In this document, the Bishops say the following to parents: “Acknowledge the possibility that your child has told you this not to hurt you or create distance, but out of love and trust and with a desire for honesty, intimacy, and closer communication.” The document also encourages families to accept their children, to show them that they love them, and to respect them as God’s children. Always Our Children also says to maintain communication, that young gay and lesbian people are at high risk of suicide and that families must not exacerbate the likelihood of such a thing.

“There seems to be,” the document says, “no single cause of a homosexual orientation. A common opinion of experts is that there are multiple factors — genetic, hormonal, psychological — that may give rise to it. Generally, homosexual orientation is experienced as a given, not as something freely chosen. By itself, therefore, a homosexual orientation cannot be considered sinful, for morality presumes the freedom to choose.”

Now, of course, the Church does hold the, “Love the sinner, hate the sin” mentality. This means that the Church says that a person can’t be blamed for who they intrinsically are, but that acting upon their homosexual orientation (namely boinking a member of the same sex) is sinful. And as we all know, that’s just ridiculous.

I’m a life-long comic book geek. I’ve been a fan of the big two (Marvel Comics and DC Comics) ever since I was able to hold a comic book in my hands. I loved the X-Men, Batman, Green Lantern, etc. I always felt that I could relate to the characters, or that they represented something bigger, like modern day Greek gods. And when I started to realize I was gay, I looked for the bigger-than-life superhero icon to relate to and look up to. Trust me, it took a lot of looking.

Comic books, like most TV shows or books, have always reflected the times. It’s that whole “art imitates life” thing. The X-Men came about in the 1960s and were a perfect analogy for the civil rights movement of African Americans at the time. Wonder Woman has constantly reflected America’s ever-changing “feminine ideal,” sometimes tough as nails, sometimes very codependent and over-sexualized. Comics like The Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen reflected a darker time in the minds of Americans in the 1980s.

So here I am thinking, in the same way that comics have helped to represent the rest of our culture, they will most definitely depict gay heroes for young girls and boys who are coming to terms with who they are. Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case. There are very few gay superheroes and most of them are very obscure.