Conservatives go nuts over Parents’ mag's cover featuring same-sex couple and their family

Fitness guru Shaun T, creator of the Insanity workout and the Transform :20 programs, and his husband and business partner Scott Blokker, spent years trying to have kids. After 12 attempts, six egg donors, five surrogates, two doctors and thousands of dollars it was success!

Now their twins, Silas Rhys and Sander Vaughn, have had their first birthday. So Parents’ did what the magazine has been doing for nearly 100 years – they put the happy family on the cover of their February issue. The article accompanying the cover went into detail about their experiences with twins.

“Scott and Shaun speak of the first four months of parenting twins as an almost comically dark time in their lives,” reports Parents’ “’It was terrible,’ says Shaun, laughing. ‘We got into more fights than we’d ever had in our entire relationship.’ Scott adds, ‘I even questioned whether we’d ruined our marriage by having kids, but it wasn’t the kids. It was the not sleeping!’

“’I’ve received two great pieces of advice,’ says Shaun. ‘Scott’s dad told me, ‘You’re not coming into the babies’ world. They’re coming into yours,’ and that made me eager to show them the life we live.’

“’The second was from my grandfather, who was married to my grandmother for 56 years. He said, ‘Never go to bed angry,’ and we don’t. The connectedness you feel at the end of the day is the driving force for how you wake up the next day, so every night we fall asleep holding hands.’”

So. A loving couple goes through the anguishing fertility process, the arrival of their kids and the inevitable problems that go along with having your life turned around by them. And how they solved those problems.

Standard Parents’ fare for families going through the same great experiences.

Of course, the nut-case right-wing doesn’t see it that way. One Million Moms, a project of the American Family Association (AFA), was horrified. (AFA has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

Million Moms, on its website, went on the attack. “Parents' is using its magazine as a platform to promote the pro-homosexual lifestyle. Even if families do not personally subscribe to the publication, they should be warned that it could be displayed in waiting rooms of dentist and doctor offices, where children could easily be subjected to the glorification of same-sex parents.

“Mothers and fathers are seeing more and more similar examples of children being indoctrinated to perceive same-sex couples as normal, especially in the media,,” the website continued.

“Likewise, the magazine’s website, Parents.com, and their other social media pages also push pro-homosexual content.” They called on conservative families to cancel their subscriptions, and set up a petition for members to sign “if you are offended by Parents’ promoting a same-sex couple on the cover of their February” issue.

So the beat goes on. Despite tons of evidence that same-sex couples are the same as opposite-sex couples, face the same challenges and have the same concerns about their children’s future, the right-wing media continues to reflexively attack anything having to do with LGBTQ+ people, their families and their right to marry.

We look forward to hearing more about Silas Rhys and Sander Vaughn, and their daddies, in future issues of Parents’!

Copyright The Gayly – January 18, 2019 @ 1:35 p.m. CST.