These couples really want children. They adopt. They voluntarily AND willingly go through the long slog of surrogacy, and even, for women spouses, the sometimes even life-threatening challenge of in vitro fertilization. I remember interviewing soap opera star Diedre Hall once, shortly after she and her husband mounted a herculean effort to conceive. It was all in vain. They tried several times - to the extent that she was finally told that she couldn't afford to put her body through that physical ordeal anymore. It put her in a coma. She was told that if she tried even once more it would probably kill her. So they turned to a surrogate mother. NONE of that is cheap, nor is it a swiftly-dispatched-with process, nor is it without risks of ALL kinds. And these couples enter into that willingly, even eagerly.

When I think of how physically arduous pregnancy was for my body, I can only imagine what happens when one is taking injections and undergoing surgery and on monitors all the time and bedridden some of the time. At least I was able to work. She was incapacitated. Thankfully briefly, but still! It is hard enough to have a baby when your body is physically building it. When you think of same-sex couples and the ADDED lengths of rapids they have to paddle through, well, if I'd had any conflicted feelings about it, this willingness to go through an ordeal to become parents would erase any doubt in my mind. These couples want a child (or two) in their lives.

EVERY child should be a wanted child. We have far too many who aren't.