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Gay Parents
"The gay marriage debate has made her friends and classmates more interested in her situation."
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By Chelsea Vargas
Renna Khuner-Haber is a 17 year old who has grown up with two moms. She says now, legalizing gay marriage is at the top of her activist to do list. but growing up, she never gave the issue much thought.
RENNA (on tape)
I knew how my parents were and that was just the way things were so like I accepted that. Um and didn’t really think that they could get married, so it wasn’t an issue for me.
CHELSEA
Now that Renna’s own family is, in a way, the subject of a national controversy, she says the gay marriage debate has made her friends and classmates more interested in her situation. It’s even livening up conversations with her parents.
RENNA (on tape)
My getting older and becoming more comfortable talking about homosexuality with them has also helped with that, um like if it had happened a year ago, I don’t know if I’d be able to talk about it with them um but it’s a cool way of like getting to talk about it.
CHELSEA
While Renna is comfortable talking about her moms at school, she’s kind of an exception. High school teacher Hasmig Minassian says she has at least a few students with gay parents in each of her classes, but they don’t say much about it.
HASMIG (on tape)
Even though I fight against homophobia in my classrooms… I don’t know that it’s even happened once this year where one of those kids has raised their hand and been like ‘um well my parents are gay and this is how I feel about it’ or ‘this is you know’ – kids don’t generally out themselves.
CHELSEA
Ms. Minassian married her partner in San Francisco this year and was proud to tell her students about it. But she worries what it’s like for kids with gay parents in other classrooms.
HASMIG (on tape)
The high school is not as safe of a place as we think it is I’m a person in authority – an authority figure. I have good relationships with my students but 14, 15 year old in a sea of 3000 to talk about their gay families, its not totally accepted so we definitely have some work to do.
CHELSEA
Maybe being “the kid with gay parents” isn’t always accepted at school, and we still haven’t heard the final word on gay marriage from the courts. But Renna Khuner-Haber’s mom always talks about the time when someday their daughter has a husband or a wife.
MOM (on tape)
And so she’d always add that in, kind of as a second thought thing. But it was always kind of, you know, you can be a lesbian if you wanna BE.
CHELSEA
No matter what Renna’s moms say, in the end, it’ll be up to the courts to decide who she can or can’t legally marry.
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