The Modern Day Non-Nuclear Family: What is a “Fit” Parent?

Hello! Welcome to this podcast, The Modern Non-Nuclear Family, in which I will discuss what it means to be a “fit” parent under the American government. We’re all familiar with the ways in which our government polices our bodies, but how far does it extend? I want to focus today on queer adoption, and the existence of it over time. According to Kathy Brodsky at Family Equality, a second-parent or co-parent adoption is a process which allows a non-biological parent to legally adopt a child without the biological parent losing any rights to the child¹. In many cases, this is what a step-parent would do in order to have legal custody of their step child. For queer parents, however, this legal process is the only way the non biological parent will have any rights in terms of their own child. This is necessary in case of emergency, either in terms of the biological parent or the child. Without a second-parent adoption, the “second” parent will have no rights in a medical emergency, or a death. This kind of adoption between a married couple is a relatively easy process. The difficulties come in when attempting to legalize a second-parent adoption between two unmarried parents. Before gay marriage was legalized, this was every queer parent’s problem. According to the Movement Advanced Project, as of 2022 only 18 states allow second-parent adoption to be petitioned by couples who are not married².  I spoke with long time gay rights activists Joan Garry and Eileen Opatut about their experience as the first second-parent adopters in New Jersey. Opatut was the biological mother of their child, but after 3 years of Garry being the central caregiver, the couple decided to fight for her legal right of the child, through a second-parent adoption. This was before the legalization of gay marriage, so despite a decade long relationship, Garry had no legal connection to either Opatut or the child. The adoption was approved, after a year-long and very expensive process. The adoption decision of the child, finalized July 1993, concludes, “The court’s recognition of this family unit through the adoption can serve as a step in the path towards the respect which strong, loving families of all varieties deserve.³” In an email sent to me by Opatut in preparation for the interview, she wrote, “Our decision made it much easier… for ongoing second parent adoption decisions across the country. We have met a number of people who’ve told us that parts of our case were cited in their decisions…. It was a great feeling, and I think it is what moved us into becoming more politically active for LGBTQ rights…. We moved from the personal to the political. And we believe every day it’s important to educate and inform the non-gay population about who we are, so that they will be educated when they go into the voting booth.⁴” Here is a bit of our conversation. The full transcript of our interview is available as well. 

OPATUT: We were not confident that we would win. 

GARRY: But it never crossed our mind that we would actually give up.

OPATUT: They recommended that we use a local law firm that the judges and the Essex County courts knew.

GARRY: As opposed to. As opposed to-

OPATUT: Bringing Lambda in.

GARRY: Bringing Lambda in, and making it, from the get go, political.

GARRY: And so, yeah, so Lambda was sort of behind the scenes and never appeared on any of the public facing documents so that it was not “tainted” with a sense of it being some political action on the part of these two radical lesbians who had a three year old kid. 

OPATUT: So we were just nice, as they referred to us, ‘gals’.

GARRY: It was both what was in the best interest of Scout at the time, combined with quite a lot of fear that Eileen’s parents would do what they could to take Scout from me.

OPATUT: Although we were very aware of laws and the world around us when it came to gay rights, it was, I think, really the first time that we became incredibly politicized. 

GARRY: Oftentimes people think that folks who file court cases are political and do it because of that. And in, I think in many cases and certainly in ours, that we were motivated by-

OPATUT: It was personal.

GARRY:-doing what was- by something very personal, by what was going to keep our kid safe and secure. And the politicizing of it was the AHA! moment at the end. I don’t think that before that time I really understood, like in here [her heart], that one person can really make a difference. That because of what we did, couples all across New Jersey were able to just go and have the documentation and get the legal connection without any cost. 

OPATUT: Well, the other thing that we knew- we went forward to such an extent because we knew that if it was a good decision, that it could be used in other states.

GARRY: We were actually the front page story- 

OPATUT: Like on the New York Post or something.

GARRY: -The New York Post or the Bergen Record or something. Either it was a slow news day or we had done something important. But for me, it actually sort of connected the idea of the legal protections, what the community really needed, and the power of the media to actually give visibility to that story. Like those connections are, you know, they get built all along the way. Sometimes you don’t see it explicitly, but it’s there.

OPATUT: There were a lot of people at the time and even a lot of people now who are part of- whatever- the LGBTQ world, that just aren’t political. It’s a social… It’s social. They don’t really read about the laws. And maybe it’s because they’re taken for granted.

GARRY: The most obvious thing to say is you just can’t sit idly by, right?

OPATUT:I think people just have to keep their eyes open, and fight, and resist. It will… there will be a fight in the courts again. There will be an attempt to overthrow…

GARRY: Marriage equality.

OPATUT: Marriage equality. There will be a fight to stop gay parent adoption, whether people are married or unmarried.

GARRY: I think we would be remiss not to, not to talk for just a second about trans people who are, you know, there are many, many, many, many theories about why Trump won by as much as he did. And probably all of them are right to some degree. But in the final weeks of the campaign, he just ran over and over and over and over again an anti-trans ad that said, you know, ‘Kamala Harris is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you.’ And, I, you know, I, I’m, I’m terrified on behalf of young trans kids. 

Queer parents like Garry and Opatut have been fighting for their rights to have a family for decades, and this fight is still ongoing. Briefed in 2019, under the Trump administration, argued in 2020, and decided in 2021, the Supreme Court case Fulton v. City of Philadelphia was a major step backwards in terms of the rights of gay parents to adopt. It was determined that it was wrong for the City to refuse a contract to an adoption agency refusing gay couples, as it exercised their right of free speech⁵. This case will certainly set a precedent for further cases like it under the second Trump administration. When the American government decides who is and who is not fit to be a parent, what are their boundaries? It is now the job of queer people today to further their fight for the rights of gay people to have their own families. While this may be a dark note to end on, it is important to remember that queer voices have always and will always prevail. Thank you for listening, this was the Modern Day Non-Nuclear Parents; What is a “Fit” Parent?

INTERVIEWER: So the first thing that I wanted to ask you about was, just like on a base level, you said that you racked up like $20,000 in legal fees, and it took a whole year just to get it done. And I wanted to ask, like, what was it that kept you… kept you going and kept you from giving up? Like, were you- were you faithful that you would win the case? Or was it just the fear of what would happen if you didn’t try? 

OPATUT: We were not confident that we would win. 

GARRY: But it never crossed our mind that we would actually give up. Right? And I would definitely say, it was both what was in the best interest of Scout at the time? Right? What was in that kid’s best interest, combined with quite a lot of fear that Eileen’s parents, should something happen to Eileen, that Eileen’s parents would, do what they could to, take the kid- take Scout from me.

OPATUT: Well, I also think that, although we were very aware of laws and the world around us when it came to gay rights, it was, I think, really the first time that we became incredibly politicized. And it’s what threw us into becoming, very, very active in the fight for gay rights, in all different manifestations from there on in.

GARRY: I think I would just add that oftentimes people think that folks who file court cases are political and do it because of that. And in, I think in many cases and certainly in ours, that we were motivated by-

OPATUT: It was personal.

GARRY:-doing what was- by something very personal, by what was what was going to keep our kid safe and secure. And the politicizing of it was the AHA! moment at the end. 

INTERVIEWER: I did actually have a question about that. Eileen, in your email, you said you described it as a switch ”from the personal to the political,” and I found that very profound. And I wanted to ask, Aunt Joanie, you’ve spent so long, like, decades fighting for gay rights. And I was wondering, do you think that without this process, you still would have at some point ended up in this field? How did this sort of awareness of the legal discrimination and like the issues, change the way that you viewed your input on it?

GARRY: I’m going to give you a cheesy answer, Sam, and I’m going to say that I don’t think that before that time I really understood, like in here [her heart], that one person can really make a difference, that because of what we did, right, because of what we did, couples all across New Jersey were able to just go and have the documentation and get the legal connection without any cost. 

OPATUT: Well, the other thing that we knew- and this is partly to answer your first question- we went forward to such an extent because we knew that if it was a good, well-written decision, that it could be used in other states when those laws were attempted, you know, people attempted to, to make them fall. So, in fact, that is what happened. And we learned that our case was referenced quite often in- and not all- are there still states where you can’t adopt if you’re-

GARRY: I don’t- I don’t actually know 

OPATUT: Oh, Florida! 

INTERVIEWER: Yes, I did research that. 

OPATUT: Okay. So it was used quite often in those other decisions making it easier for those other people to not have to spend as much money or as long a period of time, and, that was very important. I mean, I found that very… moving. When I learned that.

GARRY: Yeah. Both of us had been in the media business at the time I was at Showtime. And you were at-?

OPATUT: Where was I at the time? The BBC. 

GARRY: The BBC, maybe Food Network, not sure-

Opatut: No, BBC.

GARRY: Yeah, BBC- and what struck me was that the day that the decision came down, we were commuting to the city. And, you know, if you go to Port Authority or Penn Station, there are these, you know, newsstands, right? And I jokingly said to Eileen, gee-

OPATUT: ‘Let’s go see!’

Garry: I wonder, you know, I wonder if our story appears in one of these papers. And as we started to walk towards one of the newsstands, the word “lesbian” just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And we saw that we were actually a front page story. 

OPATUT: Like on the New York Post or something.

GARRY: The New York Post or the Bergen Record or something. And either it was a slow news day or we had done something important. But for me, it actually sort of connected the idea of the legal protections, what the community really needed, and the power of the media to actually give visibility to that story. And that’s ultimately- you know, it wasn’t quite that strategic at the time, but when I ended up landing at a media advocacy organization like GLADD, when you [Opatut] ended up being part of the team that launched Logo as an LGBT channel, like those connections are, you know, they they get built all along the way. Sometimes you don’t see it explicitly, but it’s there. 

OPATUT: I think the thing that I’m really fascinated by is when I talk to people, particularly people- well, it doesn’t matter what age they are. And I ask them, even in this most recent election. ‘So what do you think of the election?’ You know, ‘what do you think about what happened?’ And they’ll say, ‘well, you know, I’m not very political.’ You know, ‘I’m not, I’m not really, you know,’ and I will say, you know, don’t you understand that these are your rights and the laws? I mean, it won’t, like, stay. You might not end up being able to protect yourself in case something happens.

GARRY: There was a guy who came to fix our sink who has gay dads, and we started talking about the election. 

OPATUT:He was adopted. 

GARRY: He was adopted.

OPATUT: He and his brother were adopted. 

GARRY: And he literally said, ‘you know I didn’t really vote. I don’t consider myself very political.’ And it took everything in our power not to kick the guy out, or whack him upside the head like, you know, ‘wake up, buddy.’ 

OPATUT: But in fact, there were a lot of people at the time and even a lot of people now who are part of- whatever- the LGBTQ world, that just aren’t political. It’s social… It’s social. It’s, you know, I like to go out to, you know, I like to go out or I don’t, you know, they don’t really read about the laws. And maybe it’s because they’re taken for granted. And that’s probably the case. But I think if you were to talk to- maybe not other students on the Smith campus because they’re probably more aware, but maybe not. Maybe they’re just like, you know what? ‘I’m not all that political.’ And, um.

GARRY: it’s worth thinking about- when you, when you hear that, it’s worth asking people what they think they mean by that. Right. What does that word mean to them. Anyway. 

OPATUT: We’ll let you keep asking questions. 

GARRY: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: No, I love it. I, I definitely, you know, especially post this election it drives me insane especially because like I’ve, I think I’ve met two straight people here so far.

OPATUT: Stop it!

INTERVIEWER: I’m so serious, I’m being completely genuine. There’s- I know two people that I can name off the top of my head that identify as straight. 

GARRY: Well actually, I think that you and your, your parents, your parents may have been the only two straight people at Fordham Lincoln Center, you know.

OPATUT: I want to say that I think you need to start- this is my personal movement- you have to stop using the word straight, because the opposite or the other side, you know. If something’s straight. What’s the other thing? Crooked. And I don’t feel crooked. I don’t feel, you know, maybe it’s a reaction to a phrase- an adjective that was used in, like, the Second World War before that, where people who were gay were called bent. 

GARRY: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right.

OPATUT: In fact, there’s a play- that’s a very interesting play called Bent. And I don’t want anybody- if- it’s- so I refer to people as nongay, or heterosexual

GARRY: Well, non queer, perhaps

OPATUT: Non queer. Heteroseuxal, homosexual, you know, whatever it is- queer and heterosexual. I mean, I just straight, it just annoys me. It really annoys me a lot. That’s just my own little thing. 

GARRY: We’re going to turn this into the Iliad or the Odyssey. 

OPATUT: But she can start- she can start a movement on campus. 

INTERVIEWER: I think people on campus would love it if we referred to everyone that was not gay and non gay. That would be wonderful. 

GARRY: Yes. Yeah, I feel an op ed in the local paper- in the Smith college paper-

OPATUT: The Sophian.

GARRY: -coming on. 

OPATUT: I don’t know if it’s still the Sophian-? 

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. 

GARRY: All right. We’re ready for your next question, sorry. And just cut us off, okay? 

INTERVIEWER: No it’s fine, I love it and I want to hear you talk. Okay, also in your email, you talked about the process of finding a law firm that you thought would be good to represent your case. And I understand why you wanted a local law firm to have your case, but I was wondering what fueled the decision to tackle the issue through, you said ‘a more conservative law firm’. Like, was it sort of the idea that viewing it as a more centrist act, like through a more conservative law firm, would make it more palatable? Legally? 

OPATUT: Yes. I don’t- when you say you ‘can understand why we chose a local law firm,’ I don’t think- it’s possible  your reasoning for that isn’t all that accurate. We didn’t want the law firm because it was local, or convenient. We first went to Lambda Legal. They were involved in many of the second parent adoption suits, and there were actually several couples who were interviewed to be the test family. And- I think there were three of them. And, they also were- they had a New York City law firm who was-

GARRY: Oh, right.

OPATUT: Right? -a very large and important law firm that was doing that was giving them pro bono advice. And so we had to go in and be interviewed by Lambda and by this law firm so that they could select the one that they thought had the most possibility of winning. And that’s why I always joke that they thought that we were the most boring couple. So, that’s how we got to be the plaintiffs. And they recommended that we use a local law firm that the judges and the Essex County courts knew.

GARRY: As opposed to. As opposed to-

OPATUT: Bringing Lambda in.

GARRY: Bringing Lambda in, and making it from the get go political. Right. They said, go find a local law firm that knows all the judges and has the respect and the credibility with the local court systems, because that’s something they have we do not have. We can provide, kind of- 

OPATUT: Well, Lambda actually reviewed the brief-

GARRY: Right. 

OPATUT: Talked to the local attorney who were putting it together, and helped them because they, of course, had no reference-

GARRY: -prior experience of doing this.

OPATUT: No. 

GARRY: And so, yeah, so Lambda was sort of behind the scenes and never appeared on any of the public facing documents so that it was not “tainted” with a sense of it being some political action on the part of these two radical lesbians who had a three year old kid. 

OPATUT: So we were just nice, as they referred to us, ‘gals’. 

GARRY: They did! 

OPATUT: They did. 

GARRY: ‘Barbara, your gals are here.’ 

OPATUT: Yeah. And- 

GARRY: And it worked out really well. 

OPATUT: It worked out great.

GARRY: It worked out really well, because when we got the name of what judge we were in front of, Barbara, our attorney, it was like, ‘Oh, we couldn’t have gotten a better judge.’ And she knew him. And so it was kind of- the law firm was in the foreground, and Lambda Legal was kind of the, the chaperon and, the coach and the…

OPATUT: Guidance. 

GARRY: Guidance. 

OPATUT:And so they presented the case as a stepparent adoption. And if you- I think in the brief itself, in the decision, it says, ‘if I could call’-  how did they refer to you, Joan?

GARRY: JMG

OPATUT: ‘-JMG, a stepparent’ I would 

GARRY: Yeah. I mean that’s, that’s-

OPATUT: That was probably the most important statement in that decision. ‘If I could refer- if I could name her a step parent, I would. But because of the current legal situation, you know, because of the laws, I can’t.’ 

GARRY: Right. And maybe it goes without saying, but-

OPATUT: -but that leads into marriage. 

GARRY: -before that, in order for me to gain legal custody of Scout, Eileen would have had to give up hers. Because you can’t have you know, you can’t have two moms. 

OPATUT: It was very interesting. 

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah. and I also just wanted to say , because I did do a lot of research for this. You asked before if there were any states that still did not allow unmarried second parent adoptions. And there’s actually only 18 states that do currently- like that allow unmarried parents-

OPATUT: That do?

INTERVIEWER: That allow unmarried parents to petition for a second parent adoption. I just thought that was- 

GARRY: I wonder- I wonder if that’s true of non-gay people. 

OPATUT: Yes. Yes it is. 

GARRY: Probably true, yeah. 

OPATUT: So I’m gonna sound really, really conventional and conservative here and say- why would two people who could get married, but won’t get married, want to adopt a child? It’s not really in the best interest of the child. The child wants to have, needs to have, a-

GARRY: Yeah, it’s a recipe. It’s a recipe for all kinds of bad things to happen if- 

OPATUT: -in the courts. 

GARRY: Yeah, if they split up all of those kinds of things. 

OPATUT: Oh, we have a friend who had two children, with her partner, and- 

GARRY: Before we did.

OPATUT: Before we did. Yeah. And, and she- Oh, And the oldest daughter went to Smith! Yes. She ended up going to Smith!- and they broke up, and one of the women was the biological mother, and the other one was not. And-

GARRY: After they split up, the non-biological mom never saw those children again, ever. 

OPATUT: She wasn’t allowed. She couldn’t take it to court. 

GARRY: Right. Because she had no legal standing. 

OPATUT: Because she had no rights. They weren’t married. And the biological mom used the law as it existed-

GARRY: Right, the lack of law to her advantage. 

Opatut. Yes. That’s terrible, isn’t it? But- that’s the law, right? 

GARRY: Carry on, Sam! It’s a Saturday afternoon. 

INTERVIEWER: Okay. So again, all of my questions are based off of that wonderful email that you sent me, Eileen, with just a whole summary of it. You said that the reason that you thought, like, so hard was that fear of having absolutely no legal connection to each other, since this was way before gay marriage. And you said it’s the reason that you’re ‘so frightened about losing them in the future.’ So I wanted to ask, in the wake of this election and in anticipation of the second Trump administration, is there anything that either of you want to say to like young queer people now who are maybe thinking of starting a family, who are worried about going back to that kind of environment that you had to fight through? … Big question, sorry.

OPATUT: No, I believe that there will be an attempt to overthrow Obergefell versus- what is it? 

GARRY: I don’t remember the whole case, but I bet Sam has it written down somewhere, right? Yes, there will be- There will- I can imagine it likely. I mean, if Roe v Wade has gone down, marriage equality could easily go down. And I have no idea, you know, what that means for people who are currently legally married, but, I mean, the most obvious, the most obvious, thing to say is you just can’t sit idly by, right? Is that, there are far too many people with the arrival of the second Trump administration putting their heads in the sand and saying, ‘I’m just. Just gonna, like, wrap me in tinfoil and put me in the freezer and then take me out for years hence, and then I can just wake up from this nightmare.’ And the truth of the matter is, it isn’t just for years, because decisions that are going to get made during these next four years are going to last for generations. And so, maximizing your own- protecting your own family the best way you know how, right, and, being part of a movement to stave off as much as possible, I think are the two strategies that come to my mind. 

OPATUT:I think people just have to keep their eyes open, and fight, and resist. It it will… there will be some a fight in the courts again. There will be an attempt to overthrow-

GARRY: Marriage equality.

OPATUT: Marriage equality. There will be a fight to stop gay parent adoption, whether people are married or unmarried. And that is what will happen. 

GARRY: And we have, you know, we have skin in the game in a different way too, Sam, because we have a 30 year old lesbian daughter, right. 

OPATUT: And what will happen to her?

GARRY: Who, who is desperate to have a kid. Like has- suffers from chronic endometriosis and is currently exploring harvesting her eggs. Right. She’s a woman with a mission-

OPATUT: She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to carry. 

GARRY: Right. So, so we encourage her to take actions, and, you know, we’re not just fighting- we’re not just fighting for us. We’re fighting for our own kids and all of our friends and family who have queer people in their lives. 

OPATUT: I always like to say that I come out at least once a day and, it’s in the most common of places, you know, people, it might be the, you know, dry cleaner or the, the veterinarian who says, ‘Oh, this is- your dog Charlie is listed under Garry-’

GARRY: ‘Is that your husband’s name?’

OPATUT: And I’ll have to say no, I don’t have a husband. I have a wife. So, Joan, you’ll hear, if you’re ever in any family events, will say things when she introduces me to someone that might not know me, say, and ‘This is my wife Eileen.’ As opposed to ‘This is Eileen.’ Because you have to, regularly-

GARRY: The label actually really works for people in a way that partner doesn’t. Right? So, so anyway- 

OPATUT: It sounds like the Wild West when you say partner. 

GARRY: Right,with a D. Par’dner. Yeah. But anyway, I think that… not being complacent. Right? I mean, slight digression. We have- my best friend lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. She has a gay son in her early 20s. I worry about-

OPATUT: In his early 20s.

GARRY: -His early 20s, sorry. And I feel like we worry more about him living in the state of North Carolina than she does. 

OPATUT: But it most certainly had an impact on him.

GARRY: I think so. Anyway. 

INTERVIEWER: I guess to kind of like continue- You were talking earlier about being nonpolitical. I guess just sort of as two people who are very political and like, very open about fighting for yourselves, just- sorry, I don’t have this one written down- just sort of like, how does that- the fact that there are people out there who maybe are queer, who don’t see how important it is to fight for their future- like do you have anything to say about that, I guess? 

GARRY: The thing that comes to my mind is that they’re actually going to find out the hard way, right? They’re going to find out the hard way. what it means to be on the sidelines. Something, something is going to happen in their lives, in their family somewhere. Some, you know, and it, sometimes people are not, you know, how they say the personal is the political, the personal and the political are- are connected.And I think that when people think of politics as ‘over there’ in their life is just fine, right? It can be really hard to get them off the sidelines. 

OPATUT: I also think it’s difficult if you’re in an environment- Sorry, Sammy, but it’s… Smith is like a ghetto, so it’s safe, you know, it’s very safe and it’s a wonderful place to be for for years, because it’s so supportive and so completely nourishing. It sets you up to go out to fight the good fight, whatever it is that you choose- what anyone chooses to do. But, it’s- it makes people feel very powerless. And it’s not that everyone should move to the big cities, but it’s not as easy out in the rest of the world. And still it’s not as easy. And people do get fired for being queer. And they do get, unequal- live in a sort of unequal status, but they might not have the, the gumption or the resources to… put a fight up.

GARRY: Yeah. So I think we would be remiss not to, not to talk for just a second about trans people who are, you know, there are many, many, many, many theories about why Trump won by as much as he did. And probably all of them are right to some degree. But in the final weeks of the campaign, he just ran over and over and over and over again and anti-trans ad that said, you know, ‘Kamala Harris is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you.’ And, I, you know, I, I’m, I’m terrified on behalf of young trans kids. 

OPATUT: Yeah. I did a series called Trans Generation, which was a documentary series that we shot- you know, like award winning blah, blah, blah- that we shot partially at Smith. 

INTERVIEWER: Oh, wow. 

GARRY: That’s interesting. But I mean, I think that’s-

OPATUT: But it was around 15 years ago. I mean, it was a long time ago.

GARRY: I am, now I’m an executive coach for CEOs of nonprofits, and I coach the CEO of PFLAG, which is, you know, parents and friends of queer kids. And this is the frontier. And, and I guess it’s also worth saying that, without non-gay allies- let’s stay with it- without non gay allies, we don’t- it will- Non-gay allies are key. Because the army- if you’ll excuse the military expression- isn’t big enough. And one of the reasons that we support PFLAG and that I work so closely with them is because mobilizing parents, who are the fiercest advocates on earth for their kids, right, helping them better understand what the spectrum of sexuality is like, will enable them to think of themselves as advocates in that way. And I think those are the and it’s that kind of mobilizing- sorry- mobilizing the straight community, I think is going to be essential to being able to stave off the bad stuff coming our way. Bad stuff is a technical term.

OPATUT: Bad stuff, yeah. You know, the other thing I wanted to say is that, you know, 30 years ago when we did the second parents adoption, it was interesting living in the suburbs because we actually made much more sense to people in the community as parents than individuals. And I think that’s what people do when they live in the suburbs. That’s what they talk about. They talk about their kids. They talk about the soccer game. They talk about, you know, the school play. They talk about, you know, all that kind of stuff. Everything revolves around kids. And so all of a sudden we became much more… understand- relatable, understandable. And if only people actually remembered those things when they went into the voting booth.

GARRY: Right. 

OPATUT: That would be great. Unfortunately, they don’t- necessarily, and they certainly didn’t in this last election. And that’s why there was such an effort to ask people to come out is because of the theory that everyone knows a queer person, whether they’re related or next door or- but all of those queer people have to be out, so they can’t live in hiding. They have to be vocal. And it could be just vocal by being the representative to the PTA from the sixth grade class. I mean, it’s not necessarily marching in the streets. It’s being present everywhere. 

GARRY: What you’re starting to see, I’ve been reading about this, what you are starting to see the Democrats do that the Republicans have done historically so very well, is populated school boards, and like some really get into leadership positions at the very local level so that they, so that their political ideology gets embedded into that, into that community. The Democrats are actually behind the eight ball on that. And, you know, there’s a phrase about what challenging times make possible- if all of this actually causes the Democrats to take a different approach that wouldn’t be a bad thing because clearly its current approach is not working very well. In my mind.

OPATUT: Well, you can see that there’s just little inklings of the beginning of change. And I can’t really stress enough how the political is personal. And it all takes place in the home. That in Texas they are now going to allow- this just happened a few days ago- they will now allow optional Bible classes to be taught in elementary schools. And I have nothing against religion or the Bible, but it’s only a hop, skip and a jump away from saying, well, don’t say gay-

GARRY:Holocaust denier.

OPATUT: Right, you can be fired for teaching history. And we make our decisions around the Bible. We’re going to be raising a lot of Bible… ‘and the Bible says,’ you know wat? Who knows what the Bible says? The Bible says something that people 300 years later wrote, you know, after Christ died. So, it’s it will, it will- Those are the seeds, the little seeds, because you think to yourself, well, you know, there’s nothing wrong with teaching the Bible. Well, it is if you’re not  Christian. 

GARRY: Right. 

OPATUT: And it is if Church and state don’t remain separated. And that will have an impact on queer rights. 

GARRY: Just real quickly, GLAAD  was going to try to take on the history textbook world, because if you read any high school history textbook about civil rights, there’s like a whole universe of material that’s actually absent from those books, right? And that’s a- that’s a big issue.

OPATUT: Like about Aids.

GARRY: Yeah, about Aids, about LGBT rights, Stonewall, any of that. All of those books are actually published in Texas- like the big textbook publishing is in Texas. And so, you know, so there’s all different-

OPATUT: Around- but those are the textbooks that are used around the country. 

GARRY: Correct. 

OPATUT: And so, so you get to learn what they tell you to learn. 

GARRY: There’s many, many, many ways that are quite insidious that, the history gets rewritten or excluded altogether. But I don’t know how many more questions you have, so I won’t-

OPATUT: You should tell her the story about Time Magazine.

GARRY: Oh, should I tell you the story about Time Magazine. Yeah, sure. 

OPATUT: You should. 

GARRY: So there was a 75th- when I was at GLAAD there was a 75th anniversary issue of Time Magazine. So it would have been around 2001, let’s say. And we open it up, we get it back in the- you know, it’s a real magazine, right? Back in those days. 75 years and there’s nothing about Aids? There’s nothing about Stonewall? There’s no reference to any LGBT people of any sort. And so we gave Time Magazine a lot of shit for that and got ourselves a meeting with, editor in chief, and, and he was really quite mortified, actually- really good guy. And what he said was, you know, ‘our folks went back through our archives and we grabbed- we grabbed the most prominent things that were in prior issues.’ And so if it wasn’t, if it wasn’t in them, then it wasn’t going to be in the 75th anniversary issue, right? So, we turned that into lemonade by working with the 20th century issue. The 20th century issue of Time Magazine was like gay, gay, gay, thanks to us, because like the love stories of the 20th century, sports had Billie Jean King, like Harvey Milk was in there. Like it was an inclusive issue about the 20th century and how Time Magazine covered it, and we were able to be resources for them on how to think differently about their stories. But that requires a great deal of intention. 

OPATUT: And it makes a lot of sense. If it hadn’t been written about before, then there wouldn’t be anything in their archives to pull from, and so it just… disappeared. And the same can be said about- Not being aware of history, and not being aware of laws, and not being aware of preparation and sort of what you have to do. And just this very small case that you mentioned in Pennsylvania, it’s the seed for all sorts of things. 

GARRY: Right. And, and  going back- putting my GLAAD hat on for a moment- which would be fun to think about what my GLAAD hat would look like- but, putting my GLAAD hat on, like, I would want as much visibility around that case as possible, right? It’s how do you make sure- those things happen and not enough people know about them, right? But you know, when we started to, at GLAAD we started to lobby The New York Times to include same sex wedding announcements on its wedding pages-

OPATUT: That was because of me. Because I wanted to have my wedding, which was really not a wedding- I’ll tell you the story. My dad would read the New York Times wedding section every Sunday, and he would report, as he was sitting at the table, he would say, ‘Oh, two from Mount Holyoke, you know, or three from, you know, wherever, you know, University of Pennsylvania.’ And so he would always- his interest in my going to Smith as the child- that they were immigrants-

GARRY: And Holocaust survivors. 

OPATUT: My parents interest was that I would marry, you know, like- this was the the school that had Barbara Bush and the Eisenhowers, and they were really American, and they were so obsessed with me getting married to a nice Jewish boy that they just- they would just read these wedding section reports about where people went to school, and there were enough people who went to Smith, so they were okay with that. And, and it really wouldn’t matter at the time anyway. They would have no idea. In any case, I thought it was a really important thing to have wedding announcements- or even when they were just- what were they called? Non… They weren’t weddings yet, They were… they were… what did we get in Vermont? What was that called? 

GARRY: Useless. 

OPATUT: Useless! What were they called? What were they called? 

GARRY: Oh, domestic-

OPATUT: Partnerships! Domestic partnerships, yeah. 

GARRY: Which kind of sounds like you’re, like, hanging around with your cat. 

OPATUT: With your cat! Yeah. And so, I thought it would be really important to have all of that announced in the, in the, you know, journal of record so that as people were looking through, they’d go, oh, look, it’s, you know, Susie and Tom, and and John and Ginger, and Ginger and Lucy, and it would just be like an everyday kind of thing. And that’s that’s how you integrate, that’s how you populate, that’s how you change people’s attitudes and minds. And so I thought- I pressed Joanne to do what she did. I feel that’s the proudest I was. I also really missed not having a big wedding and getting to register for like plates. 

GARRY: But, the moral of this story, yes, is that people have to have their eyes open about what isn’t there and get up off their asses and do something about making sure that it is there. And I think that that’s actually, you know, the corollary story was my director of communications said that he had gotten married that past weekend. And I jokingly said, did you submit the wedding announcement to the LA times? And we had a good laugh about it. And then when we stopped, I remembered what Eileen had said to me. I was like, why are we laughing? Like, why don’t we do something? So it’s… it’s actually about I mean- I think that what happens at Smith is so valuable, not because it’s a bubble, but because they’re actually building a whole, you know, a whole posse of people who are ignited and fired up and ready to go. And it’s what you do with it that will really make all the difference. [Cat steps into frame] Here’s my domestic partner here. He loves zoom. He is a, a tail with a cat attached. All right. What else you got? I want to make sure that we don’t kill off her entire- what probably is a lovely afternoon in Northampton. 

INTERVIEWER: It is, yeah, but I, I don’t have- I cleared my afternoon. In terms of, like, just the future and the fight, do you guys have any thoughts on, like, Project 2025? Like, there’s a bunch of initiatives in that to prevent, you know, gay marriage, gay adoption. Like there’s a whole section about, gay rights and like, just how badly they want to eradicate them. So I was just wondering if you have anything to say.

GARRY: So, I don’t know, I have not read Project 2025 and I could be wrong, based on what you’ve read, Sam, maybe you can tell us. I actually think that- And you [Opatut] might totally disagree with me, but… that never happens since, like, this morning. Anyway, I, I’m going to go back to what I said. I think the, the, the trans community that’s most deeply, deeply at risk. Gender non-conforming trans folks are somehow or another, you know, sort of- As [daughter] would say, I’m a plain old lesbian, like plain old lesbian like- it feels like they’re different. Within our community, there are people who are at greater risk because there’s not… hearts and minds aren’t in the same place about trans people as they are about ‘plain old gay and lesbian people.’ I don’t know, what are you going to? 

OPATUT: No, I agree, I mean, we’re easier to- to tolerate. I hate that word. Everyone always used to say, you know, ‘we’re just looking for tolerance.’ And I’m like, I don’t want anyone to tolerate me. It’s like I tolerate eggplant, you know? 

GARRY: No, actually, you hate eggplant. 

OPATUT: I hate it, but I’ll tolerate it if it shows up in a dish. 

I think that it’s going to be very difficult. I do think that it’s going to be very difficult. And I think that, there have always- there’s always been a history of very, right wing organizations that are very, very, well-funded, in this country. And they always have treatises like 2025, but not all of them have been successful at achieving all of the goals that they have set forth in those treatises. And now there aren’t really- are there?- any alternative organizations that are funded in the same way as, like, you know, the federal-

GARRY: You mean the Heritage Foundation and Focus on the Family and those places? 

OPATUT: Yeah. 

GARRY: No, I mean, and the bottom line is all the things that makes you want- all the things that make you want to be a Democrat are the things that actually are our biggest liabilities. Is that we actually care about what everybody thinks. We are interested in multiple points of view, whereas- 

OPATUT: Inclusion.

GARRY: Yeah, inclusion. Whereas, you know, whereas Republicans, they stay on message. They walk in lockstep. And again I use those terms- You know, they’re obviously there are people who aren’t- I’m kind of stereotyping here. But I think that’s- Project 2025 is an example of what the what the right wing of the Republican Party does so very well, which is to use scare tactics to, to ‘other’ people, and to make people feel unsafe and to enable so that they can, they can establish themselves as the people who are actually going to protect you from those who are ‘other.’ And it’s a pretty- it’s a pretty smart strategy, to be really honest. We actually, you know, we are like the patchwork quilt party that thinks that the, the, the quilt is more beautiful because it has all different colors and sizes and shapes to it. Right? So I think, you know, to me, Project 2025 is just a really perfect example of what it is that the right wing of the Republican Party does so very, very well, which is scare tactics and terrifying people of those things that are not like them. And, you know, it really does remain to be seen how much traction Trump will get and whether or not Republicans- other, more centrist Republicans are able to actually-

OPATUT: Fight it off.

GARRY: Fight it- you know, actually have the chutzpah to go against party lines. 

OPATUT: Right. It’ll be interesting to see how many ultra MAGA individuals will get into positions of power. I mean, they certainly are already very central to the people that- and they will find themselves in the white House one way or another. Even if Matt Gates did step down, his replacement isn’t really all that much better. That person just didn’t have a history of assaulting young women. So, but her politics are not necessarily any different, and possibly even worse. So it’ll be interesting to see if because the Democrats don’t really have much ability, other than maybe in the Senate, to fight off all of this. 

GARRY: Yeah. I think of Project 2025 as sort of the worst case scenario, a way to mobilize- oh, that’s the cat’s tail right there, you see it?-

INTERVIEWER: Yes, I did!

GARRY: -as a worst case scenario like that direct- You know, back in the old days, you’d put direct mail- at GLAAD we’d have, like, direct mail would come to the house and, you know, up in the upper left hand corner, it would say ‘They’re coming to take away your family!,’ You know, ‘please donate.’ And I- how much of Project 2025 is a marketing tool to mobilize the base and how much they’ll get done, I think really does remain to be seen. Our country is not going in the right direction, I think that much we can pretty much all agree on. 

OPATUT: Yeah. No. And I, I don’t really know what will come. I think they’ll, I think people, as Joan said before, will really have their eyes opened for the first time in a very long time. I also really worry about where people get their information from because, you know, we used to open up the trusty New York Times or the trusty Washington Post, and that was- and you would read it and they would put it- I’m always interested in where the articles are placed, because that’s what the editorial board of those institutions think are the most important articles. But right now- I think I read the other day 50% of all people under the age of 30 get their news from like TikTok influencers. 

GARRY: Right. So we also-

OPATUT: So, you know, so when people say I don’t trust the news, well no, no shit.

GARRY: No shit:

OPATUT: You know what. What are you supposed to trust if you don’t- 

GARRY: Right. So. Right, you have to actually make a really intentional choice to seek out sources of information that you find for, you know, and I don’t even think I, you know, I don’t know, there’s a, this is a separate comment, but totally related. Since the election, prime time viewership of MSNBC has dropped by 53%. So that goes back- 

OPATUT: Oh, oh wait!

GARRY: -that goes back to the head in the sand thing, right? Is like, I don’t I don’t want to know about that, I can’t I-

OPATUT: Well there’s something worse.

GARRY: Woohoo!

OPATUT: MSNBC, because regular old cable channels are actually draining funds from these sort of larger media companies, they are spinning off the cable channels to be their own separate entity. And I know that doesn’t make all that much sense in terms of why is that important, but it means people can focus on streaming where they do think they can make more money. But MSNBC and other news channels, but particularly MSNBC, is in a very difficult position because they don’t have as much power and authority as they did when they were part of the NBC universal family. And so just the other day, I think it was yesterday, the President Elect and his good friend Elon Musk jokingly talked about that- maybe they should buy MSNBC. Yeah. And Trump said, ‘well, it couldn’t be that much money can’t be worth all that much’. And so he’s- and I don’t know if we should take that seriously, but I do take seriously the fact that certain people are now buying media companies and a good example of that is the fact that some major newspapers did not endorse a candidate. You know, as if the majority of the people even care what, you know, a newspaper has to say, but they didn’t endorse because their owner wouldn’t allow them to endorse. 

GARRY: Yeah. 

So when Jeff Bezos tells The Washington Post not to support Harris, then what you say to yourself is- well, I actually just did this. I said, ‘Joan, we can’t buy anything from Amazon anymore.’ ‘Really? Why?’ ‘Well, because it’s owned by Jeff Bezos. And he interfered with the passage of opinion and knowledge about the election.’ So then you start looking and you can say, ‘okay, I agree. Let’s just all boycott Amazon.’ Well, you know what else Jeff Bezos owns- Whole Foods. When you look at what some of these people own and they own a whole lot of different things,that you then have to say or you know, you know, I got a list. These are the good companies. These are the bad companies. Well, even the good companies have things on their shelves that are made by people who are doing ultra destructive things. 

GARRY: I think that, and then, we’ve strayed far from adoption. We are about to see what unbridled, unchecked power has- the impact of that on something that we call a democracy, right? And I think we’re in, we’re in unchartered waters. If-

OPATUT: Charted.

GARRY. Charted. Uncharted waters. If Trump had won the second- if Trump had beaten Biden, which I would have found horrifying, there wouldn’t have been a January 6th, there wouldn’t have been presidential immunity, right? All of those things, you know, it’s just interesting to think about, but now we’re in a situation, that I don’t think that our founding, founding parents actually contemplated- that a convicted felon would actually run for president and be elected. Anyway, now we’re deeply into politics, and you should go back to adoption, if you like. 

OPATUT: But to answer that, but that leads into it will be… likely that it will become more difficult to adopt. Like, let’s take it in stages. It’ll likely be more difficult to adopt if you’re not married, and you can have an ethical opinion about that or not.And then we just have to wait and see what ‘marriage means.’ So, 

GARRY: I am a bit optimistic and- overly optimistic slash naive and believe that public opinion about the G and the L in LGBTQIA+ pls has moved far enough along that there are going to be a lot of families and parents- 

OPATUT: Roe v Wade.

GARRY: Yeah. Okay. So yeah that won’t sit idly by if they’re, if their son wants to marry a nice Jewish doctor and his name is Paul, right. Like I just. Yeah. anyway, Okay, so she just made my point. So, yeah, I’m overly optimistic and slightly naive

OPATUT: Well there are- and I don’t actually know the details, but I’ve been told that there are elements within Roe v Wade that impact the LGBTQ community as well. And I actually have not read Roe v Wade, so I don’t know. But there are definitely- there apparently are two specific areas that were- that made our lives less protected when it was, you know, turned over. Which, can you believe it? This is the United States of America. Is that what people on your campus think and feel? Isn’t it just crazy? 

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. It was like the day- I watched the election in my house, living room with the people that live in my house and watching it like, just go on and on. And then the next day, like, you would think that like someone, many people had just died the energy on campus was so- because we are in a bubble, like we are in such an isolated little area of Massachusetts, I think we all were pretty naive about the outcome of the election, even if Kamala wasn’t going to win, the fact that the Senate, and the House, and the Supreme Court, and the president, everything is red. I think that, like on campus, we were all just so like, like down. But I think that since then we had a lot of meetings and like speakers and optional assemblies about where do we go from here? 

GARRY: Great!

INTERVIEWER: And I think it’s one of the things that gives me hope. Yeah. About like, just like trying to get all of us to fight forward and to like, keep working to make sure that this stuff doesn’t continue.

GARRY: That’s that’s really encouraging. 

OPATUT: Yeah. You might not get that at the University of West Virginia. So no, I’m pretty sure no, no. 

GARRY: So any- any other questions. Or did you get more than what you need? 

INTERVIEWER: No! I- I’m very happy. I don’t have any other written questions, but if there’s anything else that you guys want to stay or, like, add. 

GARRY: I don’t. No, I, I hope that this. I hope you can meld this into something that’s- other than we’d love to see the end product. That would be- That would be great. We’d love that, I think.

INTERVIEWER: Yes! I will send it, yes. 

OPATUT: I love that you’re learning to do podcasts. Isn’t that great? 

GARRY: It’s actually not that hard. 

OPATUT: No, but this is it. It’s just like a world of individual voices, you know, like knocking, you know? Hear me? Hear me.

Correspondence with Eileen Opatut, 11/1/24

Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 593 U.S. 522 (2021)

Kathy Broadsky, “What’s a Second-Parent Adoption?” Family Equality, May 2, 2019 https://familyequality.org/2019/05/02/whats-a-second-parent-adoption/

Matter of Adoption of Child by J.M.G., 267 N.J.Super. 622, 632 A.2d 550 (1993)

Movement Advancement Project, “Relationship & Parental Recognition: Second Parent & Stepparent Adoption”, June 7, 2022, https://www.lgbtmap.org/img/maps/citations-adoption-second-parent.pdf