I believe it is important to think about what being Jewish means to all of us. When you think about that, whether you know it or not, you may think of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City or one of the many programs it funds through its partner agencies.

The Jewish Federation represents many different elements in our wonderful community. For many people, it is a collective organization that secures financial and social resources through philanthropic endeavors and initiatives. To others, it is a link to Israel or to Jewish communities throughout the world. Additionally, so many view the Jewish Federation as a caretaker — providing assistance for the most basic needs and ensuring that every member of our Jewish community gets the help they need, when they need it.

The Jewish Federation teams with partner agencies to identify and solve problems locally and meet the needs in our community. I have really found these strategies to be meaningful. A few that stand out for me are:

• Jewish Employment Services program, a joint program of Jewish Family Services and Jewish Vocational Service, which helps more than 50 Jewish clients each month search for employment (and places several people in new positions each month).

• The PJ Library program, where nearly 800 children, ages 6 months to 8 years, are Jewishly engaged in the comfort of their own homes with books and music.

• Subsidies to Jewish Family Services that make counseling and consultation affordable for nearly 250 clients per year.

• JFS’ Help@Home, which enables Jewish seniors to remain active and in their homes longer by providing handyman services, general chores, computer assistance, nutritional assessments and more.

These programs are just a few examples of our collective dollars in action!

Given how consumed we all tend to be in our busy lives, it’s easy to overlook the value these programs, and dozens of others, have in our Jewish community. The Jewish Federation’s annual giving campaign is what helps makes so much of this possible for our community, making an enormous difference in how our agencies are able to serve our community appropriately.

It’s important to recall that a large number of our fellow Jewish community members rely on the Jewish Federation for help and these needs continue to rise. Your gift to the annual campaign is essential and can help your friends, family members and neighbors who are in need today.

This year’s Super Sunday event is Feb. 3. It is the one day each year where thousands of Jewish Kansas Citians come together to proudly show their support of the Jewish Federation by making a pledge to monetarily support our Jewish community. It is a time of great pride for all of us as we continue to raise the bar on our campaign targets and goals. As I said before, the money raised by you, our community members, supports an array of programs — locally, in Israel and around the world.

Nearly 70 percent of the money we raise remains in Kansas City to sustain and enhance Jewish life. As you can see by the programs we fund, every gift makes a difference. Every donation you make and every hour you volunteer changes lives for the better, enabling our partner agencies to best serve our community, whatever the needs may be at any given time. Whatever may inspire or motivate you to make a difference likely connects you to a meaningful Jewish Federation program that will help make our community or the world a better place.

Super Sunday is an opportunity to be a part of a caring community that gives back. It is also an opportunity to foster and celebrate Jewish identity for future generations. Along with my Super Sunday Co-Chair Tracy Shafton, I ask you to get involved either by volunteering your time or making a meaningful donation.

Thank you, in advance, for engaging.

Neal Schwartz is co-chairing this year’s Super Sunday with Tracy Shafton.

Tuesday, Jan. 22, was the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, known as Roe v. Wade.

Since that day in 1973, our country has been embroiled in significant moral and theological issues:

• When does life begin

• What constitutes life

• Who has “control” over such life

• What is the role of government in protecting life

• What is the role of religion in America in influencing government

On the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling, I am writing to let the world know: I am pro-life. Permit me to explain.

My views are influenced by a multitude of sources: my family, my community, media, cultural biases and norms. As one might imagine, faith and religion play an enormous role in shaping what I believe. And Judaism, as a tradition, based on both Torah and its legal synthesis, is — for me — the dominant determiner of my views. (And parenthetically, the Bible — which includes the Torah — is also the primary reference point for many Christians who hold fundamentalist beliefs.)

So, what does the Bible say? Here is THE relevant quote:

“And if two men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit departs, and yet no [other] harm follows, he shall be fined ... and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any [other] harm follows, then he shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” (Exodus 21:22-25)

Simply put, if the woman loses the fetus (and by extension, this applies to abortion), then there is a penalty paid. However, it is not life. For if the woman were to die, then the attacker has to sacrifice his own life. The fetus clearly has value but it does not hold the legal status of “living.” There is only one life that matters. The woman’s.

In the 3,500 years since this statement was first made, Jewish tradition and law (halachah) has evolved and made many detours. Yet, the essential elements of the Torah remain true: a fetus does not have the same status as that of the woman. While it may be potential life, it is not the priority. The woman is.

Thus, there is (in my opinion) only one position to hold, assuming one wishes to follow the Bible: Abortion is a legal and moral imperative, especially if the life of the woman is endangered. Even if there is no danger, abortion is NOT the killing of a person ... for personhood is reserved only for those who have been born.

So, why am I pro-life?

Because it is the life of the woman for which I am most concerned. I care about all life, even the potentiality of life. Yet, when a woman has a need for abortion — regardless of the reasoning — it is her life and the sacredness of that life that has my attention, my concern and my unwavering support. Unequivocally, this is the position that Torah COMMANDS.

I resent mightily those who characterize my position as homicide or infanticide, that I am in favor of killing babies. Or who suggest that they — and they alone — are pro-life. I am a lover of life and will protect it however I can. The difference is the focus. I choose to support a position that loves and protects the life that is over a life that might yet be.

Sadly, our country has chosen to legislate what is essentially personal moral decision-making. We do not know what will happen when the Supreme Court someday revisits Roe v. Wade. Or what further easings/restrictions will be placed on a woman’s right and ability to seek an abortion. Since I cannot keep the conversation out of legislative and judicial hands, it is my job (and yours) to speak truth to power in whatever forum we can. On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I do so by invoking Torah truth. I choose to follow Torah. I choose to believe in its wisdom. I choose to support abortion. As a result, I am proud to say: I am pro-life.

Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff is senior rabbi of The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah.

“Jewball” by Neal Pollack, Thomas & Mercer, 2012, $14.95

Author Neal Pollack has scored a slam dunk with his fast-paced novel “Jewball.”

Pollack has based the book on a real professional basketball team of the ’20s and ’30s, the Philadelphia Sphas (South Philadelphia Hebrew Association) who played in a barnstorming league. The author has written a whirlwind tale about a group of Jewish boys with talent who were threatened by the German-American Bund, and who outwitted these American Nazis both on the court and on their home turf.

The protagonist of the narrative is Inky Lautner, who in real life was, at 15, the youngest person ever to play professional basketball. In the novel, Inky is uneducated and poor and stupidly takes a side job as an enforcer for the Bund. It doesn’t take him long to realize his mistake and return to his fellow teammates. In the meantime, the team must deal with the fact that their manager Eddie Gottlieb has a gambling debt that was bought up by the Bund. To pay off the debt, the Sphas are expected to throw a game in Minneapolis to a German-American team who support Hitler’s theories of racial superiority.

On route to the novel’s final game, readers follow the team to Harlem, Brooklyn, Scranton, Pittsburgh and Chicago. They played for the most part in hotel ballrooms. After a game, they partied as hard and fast as they played. This road trip is filled with great basketball, profanity, sex, alcohol, and an occasional good night’s sleep. This page-turner keeps on scoring unbelievable shots until the last page.

Almost all of the characters in “Jewball” are based on historical figures. Everyone on the court, with one fictional exception, was actually on the Sphas. The members of the Bund were also historical figures. Even the Jewish gangster Pollack introduces was based on a real gangster. That’s part of the fun of “Jewball.” Although the author creates a situation that is fictional, it is easy to imagine that the entire story could have happened just as he wrote it. This is a book for anyone who likes basketball, for anyone who enjoys seeing the American Nazis brought down by a bunch of poor Jewish boys, for anyone with a connection to Philadelphia, and particularly for anyone who enjoys a fast-moving novel that’s dark, profane, and sometimes funny.

Andrea Kempf is a retired librarian who speaks throughout the community on various topics related to books and reading.

Hagel’s views cause for alarm

The nomination of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense has received much attention from the media. I’d like to add my personal experiences in dealing with Hagel when I was editor of the Omaha Jewish Press, 1996-2009. (Hagel was senator from 1996-2008.)

The attitude of both Hagel and his staff (campaign and senatorial) was dismissive at best and arrogant at worst. Whether it was to ask for a quote or solicit an ad, we rarely heard back from him or his staff; when we did, it was usually a rejection. While other members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans — were polite and interested in what concerned the Jewish community, Hagel and his staff gave the impression they didn’t care.

During my first three years as editor, I also served on the National Council of Jewish Women’s national board. During that time, we attempted to lobby Hagel on Iran sanctions, Israel and reproductive rights. Hagel appeared indifferent on all these issues as well.

His 180 degree-flip-flop on choice should alarm both pro-choice and pro-life advocates. For Hagel’s two terms, he had a perfect record on voting against abortion rights (a 100 percent rating from the Family Research Council). According to the Huffington Post, “Hagel … voted four times between 1998-2003 to uphold a ban on abortions at military hospitals, and he announced in 1995 that he had ‘tightened’ his position on abortion to oppose it in cases of rape and incest.”

Now nominated as secretary of defense3, he makes a complete about face! Which of Hagel’s “beliefs” will prevail? Is this change just political expediency? If so, what does that say about his character?

Columnist Caroline Glick sends up another red flag: Hagel is “looking to take on the U.S. military. They will slash military budgets … slash pensions and medical benefits for veterans in order to save a couple dollars and demoralize the military. They will unilaterally disarm the U.S. to the point where America’s antiquated nuclear arsenal will become a complete joke.”

It’s also frightening that Hagel sits on the board of the George Soros-funded Ploughshares Fund. WorldNetDaily’s Aaron Klein wrote that Ploughshares “has a long history of anti-war advocacy and is a partner of the Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies, which has urged the defunding of the Pentagon and massive decreases in U.S. defense capabilities, including slashing the American nuclear arsenal to 292 deployed weapons.”

That Hagel is associated with Ploughshares, which “has also partnered with a who’s who of the radical left, including Code Pink, … United for Peace & Justice, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation…” should be cause for alarm. These organizations call for talks with Hamas and Hezbollah and fund enemies of Israel and the USA. That makes Hagel the wrong nominee to supervise America’s security.

Cutting waste is admirable; slashing the DoD by stripping it of the capability to defend America is deplorable. Yes, it would affect our ally Israel, but worse, it threatens the safety of American citizens abroad and here at home.

Call your senators; urge them to vote against Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense.

Carol Katzman
Overland Park, Kan.

Generous benefactors make programs happen

Last month The Jewish Chronicle published a wonderful article about our annual Bagel Bash program that provides an opportunity for “young professionals” to meet one another and socialize. In addition to publicizing last month’s program, there was a feature about two individuals who met at a Bagel Bash and subsequently decided to get married.

Although the Jewish Federation received the appropriate credit for sponsoring Bagel Bash, the program would not be possible were it not for the generosity of Alice Statland, who established a fund at the Jewish Community Foundation in memory of her late husband, Dr. Harry Statland, for the express purpose of providing monies to underwrite the cost of such gatherings. The Dr. Harry and Alice Statland Young Adult Endowment fund makes it possible for us to offer two or three programs each year where more than 150 individuals gather for a good time and, on occasion, meet their life’s partner.

It is important that members of the community be aware that programs like Bagel Bash don’t just happen by themselves. The volunteer committee consisting of Aaron Goldman, Greg Herman, Amy King, Dave Suroff and Alan Widman along with Vicky Kulikov and Carol Pfau of our professional staff as well as generous benefactors like Alice Statland provide the human and financial resources to make it possible for our young people to connect in a Jewish setting.

We are grateful for the many local leaders who step up and meet the critical needs of the community.

Alan S. Edelman
Associate Executive Director
Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City

All of these arguments going on around me, arguments about whether we have the right to have guns, or whether guns kill people or people kill people, or whether gun control will save lives. And the arguments are hollow, devoid of the pathos of murder and death, empty of the moment between life and death, so empty of the blackness of staring into the oblivion, hearing the words, “I am sorry, but your child is dead.”

Have you spoken those words? Have you sat and stared at a blank piece of paper, wishing that the eulogy you will speak the next day to bring non-existent comfort to parents who are burying their child would suddenly appear and save you the shallowness of knowing that despite the necessity to speak there is nothing really to say? If you have, then you understand.

I am not alone in knowing this reality. But I hear no one discussing it. I nearly wrote just now, “senselessly lost a child,” but I took out “senselessly.” No child’s death makes sense. No death really makes sense, at the deepest emotional level. Death is absurd, so we concoct hopeful stories as to what it means. But in the final analysis, we all know that the reason we recite those stories — “Rabbi, what do we believe about afterlife?”— is because death attacks the very notion that life possesses ultimate meaning. You may as well say to a parent, “Come here a moment, I want to grasp your heart and tear it out of your chest; I want to smother your breathing with my fist; I want to gouge my fingers into your eyes so that even if you still can see light you will not really be able to see at all, everything will become a hellish mystery.”

Horror. Horror films attempt to engender an emotion that will dissipate. The horror flows through your pores and back into the world. There’s a relief, a catharsis from the experience. It’s a false horror, a manufactured emotion. It’s the new virtual world in which so many try to live. Murder; snatching a screaming child from her umbilical mother’s arms, placing her in a box, lowering the box into the ground, saying a final goodbye. That, that is horror. Horror churns in the bowels like a whirlpool in a sewer, tearing out your guts but unable to be discharged. If you have great defenses, you maybe can slow the churn, make yourself focus on something else for seconds, even minutes. But it explodes back, and shreds seams in your life fabric you didn’t even realize could be torn apart.

A woman hears a noise, descends the basement steps, finds her husband’s body on the floor and his brains splattered on the stone walls, blood everywhere. A young girl grows up without a father, gunned down on a whim after a robbery. I cannot adequately describe such scenes. They overwhelm my mind. I imagine that in war, at least you know you could die. But a 6-year-old leaves home for school, and her mangled, lifeless body is placed in your arms that afternoon? This is not an event. This is the world’s destruction; this is beyond hell, at least hell has some order, some defining characteristic, you are there for a reason. But a murdered child’s body defies reason, scorns reason. It is a freefall into the chaotic abyss.

And these people, who have experienced none of this, debate whether they should be allowed to own a weapon manufactured for three reasons: to kill people, to give a marksman a thrill, and to make a profit for gun companies.

There is no pathos in these debates, and without pathos they are absurd. I cannot bear them. Murder of a child makes insanity a realistic description of the world because if your child is murdered it’s the best description of what’s real. And if you cannot understand that, you ought not be in this debate, because this is the central fact with which it begins.

Rabbi Mark H. Levin is the senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Torah. This article first appeared on the Reform Judaism website, www.reformjudaism.org.

Going to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, even for only two days, was the most powerful trip we have ever taken. As soon as we stepped off the plane and put our bags in our hotel room we went straight to the Holocaust Museum, which was a very moving and unique experience. Just being in the museum before looking at any of the exhibits gave us a very unsettling feeling. The way the museum was built was purposeful and evoked a keen sense of sadness. Uneven stairwells, exposed ducts and little view to the outside from the museum were all design elements intended to make you feel as if you were in World War II era train station.

As students at the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy,  we thought we knew a lot about the Holocaust. But spending as little time as we did in the museum, and not even making a dent in all the information and resources there, proved us wrong. The museum has information about the Holocaust and more recent acts of genocide that we hadn’t yet learned about in our studies. We were moved in ways that we never could have imagined just by spending a few hours in a museum. The trip as a whole had a huge impact on us and we believe it is very important to remember and teach the horrors of what went on during the Holocaust beyond what we learn in school.

The way we feel toward the Holocaust and its atrocities has drastically changed since the trip. We now fully acknowledge the importance of teaching others about the atrocities of the Holocaust. Expressing our feelings toward the Holocaust and how we felt while at the museum is a very tough job. Our best advice to you is to visit the museum yourself so that you can know and feel exactly what we are trying to express.

We have only the best things to say about the Together We Remember program, and we are so thankful Mr. (Sam) Devinki gave us this incredible opportunity. From the experience, we will be able to share the important information that we learned with as many people as we can. We have already shared our experience with other students at HBHA and we will soon broaden our horizons and share our experience with as many people and organizations as we can. This article is just the beginning.

More about Together We Remember

Thirteen ninth-grade students —representing Congregations Beth Shalom, B’nai Jehudah, Beth Torah, Kol Ami and Kehilath Israel, as well as the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and an unaffiliated teen — participated in the Together We Remember Holocaust learning experience in November. This all-expenses-paid trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., is coordinated by CAJE/Jewish Federation and The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and paid for by Sam Devinki and endowments from Herb Buchbinder and Harvey Bodker.

Prior to the trip, the participants attend three educational sessions about the Holocaust, designed by Jessica Rockhold of the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and Amy Ravis Furey with CAJE/Jewish Federation. One of the goals of the Together We Remember program is to increase the number of young people who are knowledgeable about the Holocaust. Upon their return from the Holocaust Museum, students spread the message of the Holocaust to peers and congregations throughout the metropolitan area.

Evolving evolution

During the inception and conclusion of the book of Beresheet, discussion of Darwinian evolution often surfaces. Darwin was aware of the principle of abrupt evolutionary change, in his discussion of the natural selection of the species, but it was only a half century ago that language scientists recognized its importance. Noam Chomsky in his book “Language and Mind” comments:

“There seems to be no substance to the view that human language is simply a more complex instance of something to be found elsewhere in the animal world.

This poses a problem for the biologist, since, if true, it is an example of true ‘emergence’ — the appearance of a qualitatively different phenomenon ...”

Language, as viewed by Chomsky, is not the result of gradual evolutionary refinement, but rather an abrupt change, referred to in mathematics as a step function. Human language is a drastic leap from the primitive communication gestures and noises of the higher primates. With millions of dollars of government funds, psychologists and linguists using standard language training procedures in human family habitats were unable to teach chimpanzees to talk or to understand relatively simple sentences. In a subsequent set of investigations Philip Lieberman in his book “The Evolution of Uniquely Speech, Thought, and Human Selfless Behavior” concluded that the chest position of the human laryngeal vocal tract, the dimensions of the oral cavity in which the tongue is housed, and the shape of the human tongue enable only humans to produce the precise articulatory movements of the thousands of different speech sounds in the languages of the world. Were the language centers of the human brain a part of the brains of the higher primates, they would still be unable to produce human speech. That language and speech are singular human properties indicate that Darwinian principles of evolution fall substantially short when employed to support the position that humans are merely a final evolutionary byproduct within the animal kingdom. The possession of human language and human speech indicates an abrupt, special and unique creation. These thoughts were with me as I left services, singing to myself Chazak, Chazak, Vinitchazaik. (Be strong, be strong and may we be strengthened.)

Harris Winitz, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, UMKC
Kansas City, Mo.

“Promiscuous: ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ and Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness,” by Bernard Avishai. (Yale University Press, 2012)

The late 1950s and early 1960s represented a unique chapter in the history of American fiction — the rise of the Jewish writer. Beginning with “Marjorie Morningstar” (1955), which landed its author, Herman Wouk, on the cover of Time, the American Jewish experience dominated American literature. All of this culminated in 1969 with the publication of Philip Roth’s controversial “Portnoy’s Complaint.” Then, suddenly, the bubble burst. Except for Neil Simon, Jewish writers seemed to cater more to a niche market. While many of these writers showed a deeper and more sympathetic understanding of Jewish culture than did their predecessors, they no longer commanded center stage.

When “Portnoy’s Complaint” first appeared it was surrounded by controversy. Some critics saw it simply as obscene. In the words of Gershom Scholem, “This is the book for which all anti-Semites have been praying.” Now, more than 40 years since its publication, we should be able to achieve a more balanced approach. Such is the purpose of Bernard Avishai’s “Promiscuous.”

From the outset, Avishai focuses on something that should have been obvious from the beginning — the ironic distance between Portnoy and Roth: “The caution — that Portnoy was not Roth — was ignored even by more seasoned critics who read novels for a living.” Many readers who assumed that Roth was writing about his own family, for example, have been surprised to learn that Roth, unlike Portnoy, did not have a sister.

For Avishai, who is personally acquainted with Roth and has been able to obtain some first-hand insights, the novel is essentially a satire, and Portnoy himself is the principal object of the satire. Another target of Roth’s satire, Avishai asserts, is psychoanalysis itself: “If you read between the lines — and how can you not? — the uber-objects of Roth’s satire are those very orthodox psychoanalytic expectations, which Portnoy implicitly pays homage to.” Avishai defends Roth against the charge of misogyny, saying “Portnoy does not objectify women until he has objectified himself.”

I wish Avishai had paid more attention to this novel as literary satire, with its implicit critique of the novels of Malamud and Bellow, who placed too much symbolic weight on their Jewish characters. In “The Assistant,” Malamud had treated the Jew as a representative of the prophet Isaiah’s “suffering servant.” For Roth, speaking through Alex Portnoy, such concepts cannot be applied to contemporary Jews.

There are some places where Avishai’s arguments are a bit hard to follow, and there is one incident of nasty lashon hara directed at one of Roth’s detractors which has no place in a book of this type (page 136 if you have the book — otherwise, I don’t want to spread the rumor here). But if you agree that “Portnoy’s Complaint” is a landmark of Jewish-American fiction, then this book is a must read.

Support AMIT Women

There is a wonderful organization you should know about. It is AMIT Women, which nurtures and educates Israeli children to become productive, contributing members of society.

It rescues children whose families face economic or other social challenges in Israel. Many of these families were driven from their homes in Arab lands and elsewhere.

These families know poverty. Their children need an education and hope for a better life. AMIT provides this help to 25,000 children. But AMIT needs your help. The children of AMIT reflect all of Israel. Some are from families that are secular, religious, Sephardic or Ashkenazi. As the saying goes, “Save one child at a time.”

Please send any money you can to:

AMIT
817 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

The office phone is 212-477-4720

Harold Koch
Leawood, Kan.

I was 15 years old in 1991. My dad had just come out of the closet, left my mom and moved into his own apartment. Our family was stunned at his revelation and we fell apart. Books were my best friends then, and still are. So I did the only thing I knew how to do: I went to the bookstore to get some help.

I asked the Waldenbooks saleswoman for a book about having a gay dad. She looked dumbfounded, then suppressed a giggle as she led me to the children’s section where all of the babies’ board books were. She handed me a copy of Leslea Newman’s “Heather Has Two Mommies,” and anger swelled up inside of me. I mumbled a thank you and left, tears dripping down my flushed cheeks.

Years passed and I never met anyone else with a gay parent and that profoundly shaped me. I was lonely and had no one who really understood. Confiding in friends is OK, but unless you’ve “been there, done that,” it’s not the same. And although I have two younger brothers, we are years and worlds apart so our experiences are diametrically opposed. We may be siblings, but we process things differently. Consequently we’ve never talked much to each other about it.

In 2011 I finally “met” two other kids of gay dads virtually via the Internet. Coincidentally, our fathers were all born in 1949 within three months of one another. We began talking, emailing, and Skyping. Amie Shea suggested we start The Gay Dad Project. Jared Karol and I jumped in and we began a blog, a Facebook page, and even hopped on Twitter to spread our message: IF YOU HAVE A GAY PARENT YOU ARE NOT ALONE. WE ARE HERE FOR YOU. WE WANT TO SHARE OUR STORIES, AND WE WANT TO HEAR YOURS.

I flew to Oakland with my gay dad in August 2012, to meet Amie, her gay dad and Jared for the first time in person (Jared’s father died of AIDS in 2000). We were instantly comfortable with each other, which isn’t always the way when you meet someone from the Internet. We hugged each other — hard. It was life-changing for me; I didn’t feel alone anymore. We spent Labor Day weekend talking, filming a trailer for a documentary we’re hoping to make, and celebrating at the Oakland Gay Pride festival.

This is my calling, my life. I was born to do this, to spread the message. Coming out of the closet in 1991 was hard enough on us, but gay people are still getting married because they feel the need to hide. We can help put a stop to this! We need to help LGBTQ (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transexual Queer) people feel free to be themselves and not conform to society’s standards.

Most of all, we need to help the families who are struggling through these circumstances right now. We are here to listen, offer support and advice, and to recommend resources. We welcome your stories on our site. If this is a cause you feel passionately about, we’d love your help spreading the word.

Children of gay parents are not freaks; many are simply hiding, as I did. When a gay parent comes out of the closet, the straight family and children often go INTO the closet. There are plenty of resources for the LGBTQ community, but what about us? What about the kids? We need each other. We need affirmation that we’re not alone.

If you’re reading this, remember that you are not alone. You have me. And you have Amie Shea and Jared Karol, my partners in The Gay Dad Project. And many others who are too scared to share. Together we are a force to be reckoned with. Join us.

Erin Margolin is co-founder of The Gay Dad’s Project, a place for families with one straight parent and one gay parent to share their stories. In December she was interviewed on KCUR. You can hear the interview at http://kcur.org/post/gay-dad-project. Learn more about The Gay Dad Project by visiting www.gaydadproject.org.