General Discussion

And I'm both pleasantly surprised - and alarmed - at what I've seen of the public reaction.

As an early lesbian parent (my daughter turns 36 next month), one of the things always in the back of my mind was that even a biological relationship with my daughter would not protect my legal relationship with her from the bigotry of others. We were always just a complaint or two by someone who believed two women should not choose to have a child together. And, until long after she became an adult, she and my spouse were denied a legal relationship with each other at all.

I have not heard any (or at a minimum very little) about the possibility that this attack was because he is a gay man - something which would have been an immediate (correct) conclusion back when my daughter was the age of his twins. (Plenty of talk about it being politically motivated, but none that I have heard ties it to being motivated by his being gay.)

So that's the pleasant surprise - that it wasn't an immediate assumption that he was targeted because he is gay - and even that it might be right because he is gay.

But it is also the source of the alarm. LGBTQ people are currently under attack. Obergefell (and the rights to have relationships with both parents which came from t) is not stable ground on which to rest. Just as Roe was not. Long term, the same folks who plotted for two generations to overturn Roe are beginning their plot to overturn Obergefell . . . starting with the dramatically increased attacks on trans individuals.

The fact that this attack was politically motivated should always be coupled with the reality that he was targeted because he is a gay man - rather than viewing it merely as political.