I am a 22 year old donor conceived adult and i find this t-shirt and bib business quite an instult!!! I was raised with a dad and i was conceived and the daughter of an anonymous sperm donor who i know as T5 (this is his 'donor code'). I think it's shocking that so many adults feel they have the power to decide for a child/a person whether or not both their parents will be important to them. It should be left up to the child born to decide, not the parents who as far as i am concerned, are putting their wants above the freedoms and desires of their child. In any case donor conceived people, much like adoptees are made to feel grateful to be alive and to have such loving parents. This poor boy looks as though he is being told what is best for him rather than his parents letting him figure that our for himself. Who knows, one day he may turn around and say, actually, my daddy's name is "_______".
Narelle | Homepage | 04.18.05 - 7:23 pm | #

I hate to break this to you, but do you guys know anything about modeling and the marketing of clothes? The child wearing the t-shirt is a professional model chosen for his good looks. The pictures are marketing tools, they are not taken from a family album. All clear now?
sickduck | Homepage | 05.17.05 - 9:29 am | #

Sorry to break it to *you*, Sickduck, but YOU'RE the one who is mistaken. If you look at the about page/family album of the company there, it IS indeed their son, Zion, not a professional model.
http://www.familyevolutions.com/...s.com/ about.cfm
Ummm... nope. | Homepage | 05.17.05 - 10:11 am | #

That's right. One picture from one company tells us everything we need to know about anyone who supports gay marriage. It must be great to be able to make sweeping judgments without bothering to construct an argument. Just set forth essentialist ipse dixit assertions as if they are uncontroverted facts and use the word "about" a lot ("It's not about letting a new social norm be accepted alongside the old. It's about upending the norms...). Perhaps this is "faith-based" logic.
Big Worm | 05.17.05 - 12:52 pm | #

You get 'em, Big Worm. Defend that abstract PC B.S. for all you're worth.

Meanwhile, the kids are getting an absolutely horrible upbringing and are heading for serious emotional problems when they grow up... but that is just fine; parenting is a personal political statement anyway and nothing inconsequential like the good of the child should EVER be allowed to stand in the way of a couple's personal expression...right?
After all, they're just little kids. F**k 'em, it's not like they matter anyway.
DaveP. | 05.17.05 - 3:20 pm | #

More ipse dixit DaveP. I'm not the one being abstract. Sweeping claims were made, and I asked for some modicum of evidence or argumentation, but such remains unproffered. How do you know these kids are getting a horrible upbringing? Any facts indicating children of same-sex parents are at greater risk for anything? I haven't seen any. Apparently emotion is a passable substitute for evidence and logic 'round these parts, as long as you claim to be defending the interests of kids. Oh please, won't *somebody* think of the children?
Big Worm | 05.17.05 - 4:45 pm | #

Good work uncovering this Dawn. Too bad it took Michelle Malkin's blog to refer us to YOU!

Very selfish, very self-serving, very self-aggrandizing, very sad! This type of thing needs to be uncovered wherever it's found.

Keep up the good work.

John
John Ford | Homepage | 05.17.05 - 4:52 pm | #

"Sweeping claims were made, and I asked for some modicum of evidence or argumentation, but such remains unproffered."

I have no claim to evidence, but I do thing common sense and self-evident truths enter into the debate.

One of these I was thinking about earlier is this:

Heterosexual couples avail themselves of sperm donors when the father cannot produce it on its own. When do think a heterosexual couple would ever put a shirt like this on their child?

The reasonable answer is "never."

As such, it's a political statement that is unique to lesbians that would slap it on "their" children. And it just makes it that much more starkly clear how different they are from the heterosexuals they claim to be equal to- a child isn't just a child, it's an opportunity to poke a finger in the eye of the competing ideology of mainstream heterosexuality.
John R. | Homepage | 05.18.05 - 3:47 pm | #

John R.,

These shirts are really sticking a thumb in the eye of heterosexuals? I'm heterosexual and a male, and I'm not offended. This sounds more like whiny grievance-mongering by those who simply can't stand the idea that people who don't conform to the sexual practices aren't shameful about it. And if you think that no heteros use their children to make political statements, you're grossly mistaken.
Big Worm | 05.19.05 - 1:30 pm | #

"These shirts are really sticking a thumb in the eye of heterosexuals?"

Yes. THESE shirts are most certainly that.

"I'm heterosexual and a male, and I'm not offended."

And that's your only way of observing if something was MEANT to be a stick in the eye from the gay community to the "breeders"? If you're offended, they meant to? If you're not offended, they didn't mean to?


"This sounds more like whiny grievance-mongering by those who simply can't stand the idea that people who don't conform to the sexual practices aren't shameful about it."

So these shirts are an example of lesbians not being shameful of their sexual practices? Which is it, wormy? Is it a stick in the eye to those who would shame them or not? You've said it's not, now you imply that it is.

"And if you think that no heteros use their children to make political statements, you're grossly mistaken."

Don't argue away from the topic at hand. People use their children for all kinds of despicable reasons, but that's a whole other subject. The subject in this topic is THESE shirts and the message being sent through them.

And it's definitely a message aimed clearly at heterosexuals and traditional breeders. I've logged plenty of hours around gays and lesbians in my life, and I know the deep-seated contempt many of them have for straight people. Some of it is merited (genuine examples of bigotry), but a lot of it is rooted in jealousy that their unions aren't capable of the natural givens of heterosexual unions. Thus, the "breeders" pejorative.

It's just jealousy and resentment that others can do what God and/or Nature has determined that they can't.

So keep ignoring the obvious, Big Worm.
John R. | Homepage | 05.19.05 - 2:27 pm | #

John R.,

"If you're offended, they meant to? If you're not offended, they didn't mean to?"

Strawman. I never set up that dichotomy. My lack of offense, and your outrage, are merely two data points that suggest, but don't categorically prove, that this may be in the eye of the beholder. Those who think that homosexuals deserve little more than contempt are offended when homosexuals dare to assert their equality. Those who do not, aren't. You appear, from your posts, to fall within the former category.

"Don't argue away from the topic at hand. People use their children for all kinds of despicable reasons, but that's a whole other subject."

Indeed. And it's one that you brought up, or did you forget writing this: "And it just makes it that much more starkly clear how different they are from the heterosexuals they claim to be equal." I can see why you'd want to back away from that silly statement, but you nonetheless made it, and I responded to it. I'm not trying to "argue away" from anything.

"I've logged plenty of hours around gays and lesbians in my life, and I know the deep-seated contempt many of them have for straight people."

And here we see the fallacy of composition - "Gay people that I know don't like heteros, therefore these particular gay people don't like heteros." The fallacy is seen when we oberve that, to complete the syllogism, one must also assume that "All gay people are like the gay people that I know."

"It's just jealousy and resentment that others can do what God and/or Nature has determined that they can't."

Lesbians can't reproduce without a sperm donor? That must be news to Melissa Etheridge.

In sum, I'm not ignoring the obvious - it's quite obvious that you don't know what you're talking about.
Big Worm | 05.19.05 - 5:32 pm | #

"Strawman. I never set up that dichotomy."

Yes, you did.

"Those who think that homosexuals deserve little more than contempt are offended when homosexuals dare to assert their equality."

I think they deserve a little more than contempt, in fact. Ha ha. But I don't see at all how "My daddy is a donor" shirts at all assert equality in any way. If there were no sperm banks, there wouldn't be no baby. 100% of lesbian couples are wholly dependent on others for this sperm.

If we were gonna shoot a couple into space to populate Mars, we wouldn't send a lesbian or gay couple. Inherently unequal, I would say. At best, they're a pale simulacrum of Adam and Eve; male and female unions are the nuclear power that drives civilization. Homosexual unions are the Flintstones-mobiles you have to brake with your feet before the car goes out of control.

My reference to "equal" is based on the insipid notion of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, in which they demanded laws be rewritten that reflected that homosexual couples be regarded as "equal in all respects" to heterosexual couples. This, to me, is a notion that is inherently and empirically false. For sure, they can be equal in some regards, but not all, and certainly not the most important ones, which involve the creation and maintenance of families.

"Indeed. And it's one that you brought up, or did you forget writing this: "And it just makes it that much more starkly clear how different they are from the heterosexuals they claim to be equal." I can see why you'd want to back away from that silly statement, but you nonetheless made it."

Yeah, I made it, it's not silly, and I don't feel like I need to back away from it. I'd love to see you worm your way around telling us how Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher and David Crosby's "Triad" relationship (congrats, David, you finally got to live out that awful song you wrote for the Byrds in full public view!) is in any way remotely "equal in all respects" to the ideally realized relationship between a heterosexual couple who love each other and express that love in the creation of a child.

Here is the premise of my creation: my mom and dad met, sized each other up as people able to take care of not only each other, but any potential kids they would have in the future. They made my brother and sister, and then had me, a happy little accident. They raised us quite well over the years, maintaining their love and spreading it to the kids only they could have. I can look in the mirror and understand that I not only look like my father and mother, but my personality, ideals, and traits are largely informed by their genetic materials and their example as parents. I am a man based on my dad. And I understand women through the prism of my mother.

Julie Cypher's children have absolutely nothing to do with Melissa Etheridge, other than the fact that now they can count on a life with every other weekend and summer vacations already charted out being with one or the other. For sure, when they're with Julie, they can at least understand their connection to her. But when they're with Melissa, they're gonna wonder "why am I being shuffled around the country to hang out with this woman I'm in no way connected to in any real, substantive way?"

And God forbid if David Crosby, who they also are gonna look like (god help them!) wants to claim some sort of parental oversight over them. He's got a good lawyer, I'm sure if he wanted to, he could get stuff done.

Look, these kids are probably gonna be like pigs in you-know-what, since they're connected to all these famous rock stars and ex-wives of movie stars, so they're probably gonna love it.

But what of the rest of the kids born in these carnival attractions? Don't for a second think that I have no ill will towards heterosexual couples for whom child-rearing is a joke on the rest of us; I do. But homosexuals are a contraption from the word go. They're a Xerox copy of the real thing.

Again, to say that they're "equal in all respects" is a patent lie- nature has determined that gay couples MUST go beyond the bounds of their coupling to get certain things done. That's what I meant when I said that. And that's a point you can't argue against except to say that it's immaterial, which I don't buy.

"And here we see the fallacy of composition - "Gay people that I know don't like heteros, therefore these particular gay people don't like heteros." The fallacy is seen when we oberve that, to complete the syllogism, one must also assume that "All gay people are like the gay people that I know."

First off, I didn't say gay people I know don't like heteros. That's untrue. I said they're jealous of them, and when they get really resentful about the constraints that nature has placed upon them and their relationships, they can sometimes indulge in immature tantrums, like calling their heterosexual peers "breeders" in a snide and smarmy way.

And not all gay people act that way. I am making a generalization. But many do say that, and the whole "breeders" pejorative is unique to their ideology. Nobody that I know that is straight goes around with that particular chip on their shoulder.

And again, my whole point earlier about this lesbian couple who would slap this slogan on "their" child (well, half of it is, at least), is that you would never see this T-shirt on a heterosexual couple's child. Never.

Yet another example of how they are "different" from us heteronormatives, and thus unequally dispositioned ideologically in how they might raise their children. Their orientation as a parent is substantively different than a heterosexual who takes the hegemony of the social structure for granted. (As well they should, because that is the natural order of things.)

We see these kinds of T-shirts because these lesbians are declaring revolution against heterosexual hegemony, which is empirically the natural order of things. I call it as I see it. You wanna keep pretending it's not that, go ahead. But I think you know that it is exactly what you take me to task for saying it is: a poke in the eye to heterosexuals.
John R. | Homepage | 05.19.05 - 6:57 pm | #

I'm stuck on the "heterosexual mother loves her son's body" bit. So does the heterosexual mother who is married to the father circumcise? Or not circumcise?
Lisl | 05.01.06 - 9:57 am | #