Why I Want My Daughter to Be Gay Like Me

CNN political commentator and mom Sally Kohn is offering an outlook on parenting she says even her friends aren't so sure about: "I'm gay," Kohn writes in the Washington Post, "and I want my kid to be gay, too." Kohn says that despite the concerns of some, it's not unusual to want your child to be like you, even if many of us are reluctant to admit such feelings. "If we went to college, we want our kids to go to college. If we like sports, we want our kids to like sports. If we vote Democrat, of course we want our kids to vote Democrat," she notes. The trouble here is that being gay has become "an unfortunate, even pitiable status."

A daughter who is gay, you might think, will "undoubtedly face challenges and hurdles she wouldn’t encounter if she were straight," Kohn writes. But for Kohn, being gay has never been "anything other than an asset and a gift"; it has helped her to understand the plight of others, and she credits her career as an "activist, writer, and TV personality" to it. If her daughter is gay, "I don't worry about her having a hard life. But I do worry about people expecting her to have a hard life—helping to perpetuate discrimination that might otherwise fade more quickly." America has made strides in the last few decades in that it's "more widely acceptable to be gay." But the reality is that it's still no more "desirable," Kohn observes. "I want my daughter to know that being gay is equally desirable to being straight." Her full piece is worth a read. (More gay stories.)