Gay Southerners: Out, Proud & Parenting

Myth: Most LGBT Americans live in upscale urban gay ghettos like West Hollywood, North Halstead, Chelsea or Hell's Kitchen; or in gilded suburbs like Ferndale, Mich., or Wilton Manors; or in resort communities like Palm Springs, Key West, or Provincetown. We are either single or DINKs (Double Income, No Kids). We drive late-model cars, vacation in exotic destinations and spend our free time having amazing sex and working out.

Fact: A great many gay Americans live in smaller cities. Many of us live in the Deep South. We have children --�in some cases, a great many children. We are continually struggling with financial issues. We are religious and belong to a congregation of like-minded souls.

In a recent, well-received article, The New York Times examined census data and went to a city with a surprisingly high number of gay households to explode the myths that both we and our enemies all too often embrace.

The city is Jacksonville, Fla. Often thought of as the capital of the redneck part of Florida, highly conservative and deeply religious, Jacksonville has one of the largest populations of gay parents in the country. (The gayest city in America, at least according to a nonscientific survey in the Advocate, is Minneapolis.)

Census data shows that, in fact, gay parenting is more common in the South than in any other area of the country, including the Northeast and the Pacific Rim. "The families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast," according to Gary Gates a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Or, as Bob Witeck, who heads the well-known gay marketing firm Witeck-Combs Communications, put it, "We're not all rich white guys."

Not only that, but black and Latino LGBT couples are far more likely to be raising children than whites. And, perhaps not surprisingly, lesbians are far more likely to be raising children than gay male couples.

One of the reasons for the ethnic discrepancy may, ironically, be less acceptance in the black and Latino communities, which means more people may stay in the closet to the point of marrying and having children before openly accepting their sexuality.

That's anecdotal, however; the reality is that there are a lot of us raising families and, as with the rest of the country, struggling financially to do so.

The article gives the example of Ty Francis and Rosalyn Cooley. The Jacksonville couple are raising six children together. "I'm one check away from being on welfare," Francis said.

The article also cites the pressures children in such relationships can be put under by their peers. But overall, the families appear to be happy. And the city of Jacksonville, far from being Redneck Central, is overall an accepting place. Several churches embracing gay parishioners, and Gay Pride is popular there.

As LGBT Americans continue to come out of the closet and lead open, mature, lives, more and more of the myths are giving way to a grittier --�but in many ways more fulfilling -- reality.