Dawn Stefanowicz is a Catholic Catholic author who grew up in Canada with a gay father and grew up with a lesbian mother. In her new book, Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting, Dawn shares her personal story of growing up in a gay household and the impact it had on her and other gay children.
00:00:30.000This is Radio 314 on the Red Ice Radio Network.
00:00:45.740Welcome new and regular listeners. This is Lana joining you for the next hour. I'm happy to have you.
00:00:51.080I like to talk about what we're not allowed to talk about.
00:00:53.960These are the things we should be scrutinizing with a microscope.
00:00:56.680The things the establishment tells us not to question. We know what these topics are.
00:01:02.400One of those is the myth that children of homosexual parents are no different from other children and suffer no harm from being raised by homosexual parents.
00:01:10.500My guest today will discuss this myth and as you probably guessed, she's quite controversial.
00:01:15.340Why? Because she wrote a book called Out From Under, The Impact of Homosexual Parenting.
00:01:21.520In fact, Dawn Stefanowicz could be charged for a hate crime in Canada for writing this book.
00:01:26.560So it was published in America, which is still surprising.
00:01:29.880She's even received death threats for this book.
00:01:32.740Dawn is a kind, intelligent woman and she doesn't spew hatred of any kind.
00:01:37.140And although she's a Catholic, she isn't preaching on whether gay is right or wrong.
00:01:40.700In the book, she shares her very personal story of being raised by a gay father and how it impacted her life.
00:01:47.360Sadly, she was exposed to different gay subcultures, explicit sexual practices, and other behavior no child should be exposed to.
00:04:11.500It isn't. You know, for any child to go public, it is extremely risky, personally and professionally.
00:04:19.040You know, I'm a Canadian, but, you know, there are risks for me because of our laws here.
00:04:26.140But I'm worried about the United States and other countries.
00:04:29.540When they legalize same-sex marriage or genderless marriage, it eliminates and restricts a number of our freedoms.
00:04:38.380That's right. And I'd remind people as we get going in this topic, it's bigger than people's religious doctrines or views on homosexuality.
00:04:47.240It's about what's good for the children and how it affects them mentally, physically, spiritually.
00:04:52.380We know the negative impact of children who grow up without dads and also without moms,
00:04:56.860but all of a sudden we forget that when it comes to homosexual parenting, right?
00:05:00.560Well, it's true because, I mean, you know, people try to diminish the fact that man-woman marriage is traditional.
00:05:09.760But when we look at the impact on children long-term who've lived through cohabitation, divorce, single parenting, step-parenting,
00:05:21.700you know, especially after remarriage, foster care and adoption,
00:05:25.540and even children that have come through reproductive technologies and surrogacies,
00:05:31.360when you get to same-sex parenting, you know, definitely kids are going to struggle with a number of issues coming out of any area of brokenness,
00:05:40.700but especially when you're denied the respect and the freedom to be able to share what you really, really feel inside.
00:05:49.180That's right. And today all we hear about is human rights, but seldomly do we hear about children's rights
00:05:55.480or what's good for the children, not just what the selfish adults want.
00:05:59.140And we often hear that children grow up in just as well-adjusted and homosexuals and heterosexual homes.
00:06:04.800So does your childhood experience in a homosexual home reflect that commonly accepted message?
00:06:09.040You know, I don't follow the LGBT talking points, and so I would say that the impact for children is quite negative overall.
00:06:20.420I've heard from well over 50 adult children that grew up in a same-sex parenting household,
00:06:28.180and they have experienced depression, all different types of stressors.
00:06:33.200About 30% of us self-identify as second generation, whether that's homosexual, bisexual, or even transsexual, transgender.
00:06:47.460There's a number of things we have to deal with long-term, and, you know, it takes us until about our late 20s, early 30s
00:06:54.140before we can begin to understand how this has impacted us.
00:06:57.780Now, what was it that caused you to wake up to this impact that you've endured?
00:07:01.280Part of it is, you know, I really didn't have the maturity as a child to, you know, really to comprehend what was going on,
00:07:09.680why from infancy my father had different male partners that were in the home.
00:07:15.480And I also, you know, was taken into the developing GLBT subcultures in Toronto, Canada.
00:07:22.500This would have been late 60s going into the early 70s.
00:07:26.020Before, there was that political correctness that you now see with the GLBT, LGBT movement.
00:07:35.320But, you know, our brains as human beings don't stop developing until about our mid-20s.
00:07:41.220And it's by then our frontal lobe of our brain can now, you know, actually judge what we feel about things,
00:07:51.520what we think about things, and start reasoning and assessing where we've come from,
00:07:57.020where we're at now, and where we're going.
00:07:59.920And unfortunately, you know, by my late 20s, when I was ready to begin to address my thoughts
00:08:05.960and my feelings around growing up in a homosexual household, I had already made a number of big decisions
00:08:13.240around relationships, my academic and career goals, and so forth.
00:08:19.860Well, I think we should get into that.
00:08:21.420I wanted to ask about your mother and father.
00:08:23.440So what was your relationship like with them for people who don't know your story?
00:27:19.100So potentially, I mean, you do have communities of, as an example of lesbian women who conceive children using the same sperm donor and the children actually play together as half siblings.
00:27:34.760Well, what about, we've talked about two fathers, but what about the effects of growing up with two women?
00:27:41.800You know, it's, you have to look at, first of all, the sex of the child, whether it's a boy or girl growing up with two women.
00:27:48.120And I don't want to limit it to two women because there is a greater chance that that relationship will end and there'll be other relationships.
00:27:55.900For the, for the daughter, I think she would, you know, from my discussions with adult children that have grown up with lesbian parents,
00:28:05.640the girls tend to grow up with this idea that they can do all things themselves and that they don't need men.
00:28:13.080The reality is when these adult children have grown up and married the opposite sex, they realize, oh my goodness, this is what I missed out on.
00:28:25.020And they, it's like, this is what a dad is supposed to do and be there for.
00:28:30.200And, you know, I remember the testimony of Heather Barwick for the SCOTUS brief.
00:28:35.960And she realized what she was missing from watching her own husband and how he was involved with her children and just the raising of the children.
00:28:46.440And she went, oh my goodness, this is what I'm missing.
00:28:49.120Um, it's, it's very, very painful realization.
00:28:52.940And also the fact that you do come to the reality that as a girl growing up, um, in, in, you become a woman that you pot, you know,
00:29:01.620society might be telling you and the lesbian community might be telling you, you can do anything you want, be anything you want, do it all.
00:29:47.200It's at the same time mimicked right in front of me is my father with a, uh, male partner.
00:29:54.220And they all seem to have these traits, kind of more feminine traits, more submissive.
00:29:59.680Um, you know, and they, they tend to do cleaning and cooking and certain things you'd expect of, you know, the mother in the home or the, you know, the woman in the home.
00:30:44.080You don't see male and female being equally loved, equally valued, equally seen as important.
00:30:49.560And I apologize if I seem repetitive on this issue, but I'm restating it because it's a very, very deep, uh, painful thing to have one gender rejected, um, in the, in your, your deepest relationships you could ever have,
00:31:06.340which is, should be with your, both with your, uh, with your father and your mother.
00:31:11.080You should be able to see father and mother as husband and wife, father and mother.
00:31:16.560You should also be able to see interactions, uh, with your brothers and sisters, with your parents, both genders being represented there.
00:31:27.620Those family relationships are very vital to your understanding of who you are and how you connect within your own family and, um, creating these fake families.
00:31:40.060Cause they really are fake families when you have, um, you know, uh, you know, a parent that is involved with different same sex partners.
00:31:52.280Even if you call that same sex parenting, I could have an auntie or grandma come over and do pretty well the same thing, except they're not going to be having sex with my parent, hopefully not anyway, in the bedroom.
00:32:03.300Uh, you never know these days with what people are, uh, asking for recognition of, um, but it's, it's just, uh, there's a, something incestual in this, um, for a child though, because, you know,
00:32:19.960you grow up and you relate to that same sex partner almost as if they're an older sibling.
00:32:26.480And at the same time, what looks or feels like, uh, like an adopted older sibling in your family is actually having sex with your parent.
00:32:35.840It's really an odd way of looking, but I never looked at any of my father's partners as a parent.
00:32:45.220I looked at them, uh, the only way I could really view them was as an older sibling.
00:32:49.960Yeah, it's interesting how the left is just, they're just out to, they want to destroy the family unit.
00:32:55.780They have to destroy biological gender roles.
00:32:58.260They're pushing, you know, shows like Modern Family, The New Normal.
00:33:01.860There's just an all-out war on just the primordial family unit.
00:33:06.300It's something we've had for thousands of years on this planet.
00:33:09.100So what do you think their real motive is behind that?
00:33:11.460Are they just out to destroy things or where is this coming from?
00:33:14.820I don't think that the LGBT, um, you know, movement overall, uh, the membership that belongs actually know what's going on.
00:33:25.480But I think there's a fraction, uh, that use the LGBT movement that are really about dismantling the family and bringing in state control.
00:33:37.420Because if you look at a number, what you have a number of children, uh, that come out of this kind of brokenness.
00:33:45.020And when you're, you grew up in a same-sex parented household, you, you know, truly start to lose your, your, uh, relations or your connections to your relatives and your ancestry within the first generation.
00:34:01.240Um, you know, my children are growing up without ever knowing, um, grandparents.
00:34:09.440They're growing up without ever knowing what it's like to have that extended family related to them.
00:34:16.100And a big part of that is because my father put so much of his energies and his time, his whole life, into his same-sex relationships.
00:34:24.960He really, really, um, put, um, my brothers and I at a much greater risk of losing that intergenerational support that we would have when we got married and have had our own kids.
00:34:39.620And so it just takes one generation to separate us from our biology, from our ancestry, our roots.
00:34:51.360Uh, we understand that even when a step-parent comes into the home and, and is trying to do everything he or she can in the family unit, that still is not the biological parent.
00:35:03.860And, and, and so we need to be truthful.
00:35:06.480We need to be honest about the relationships, um, that our parents are involved with because that impacts us as children going forward.
00:35:15.960And, you know, I believe that if as much as possible, children need to be raised by their biological father and mother who are married as much as possible.
00:35:27.660And I do know there are foster care situations and adoption situations, but even with children that come out of foster care and adoption, um, you know,
00:35:38.220they're best to be raised by a, um, you know, by, uh, adoptive parents that are representative of married father and mother.
00:35:49.600I have looked at, uh, foster care and adoption and the risks for children.
00:35:53.760There's a much higher degree of there being, um, you know, psychological and emotional issues going forward.
00:36:01.420Even though, uh, even though, uh, they grow up, you put, try to place children in the, the safest, most, most secure home environment.
00:36:08.820These children are a much higher risk of a whole bunch of issues.
00:36:12.180Children that come out of, um, reproductive technologies as surrogacy and so forth, much higher risk of psychological issues, risk of cancer, uh, physical and mental disabilities.
00:36:26.060And, uh, the children are also much higher risk when they grow up and want to have children to be infertile so that, you know, we're really playing with nature and, uh, trying to be God, um, in, in creating these artificial family structures and living arrangements that are not biologically tied together.
00:37:08.700Have you looked into the many studies on the importance for children to have both their biological mother and father?
00:37:14.660Because I know there's even crucial hormonal interactions from having both parents.
00:37:19.260There is, um, you know, when I, when I've looked into it, I, to be fair, what I did is I looked at, uh, first of all, I looked at one man, one woman marriage.
00:37:31.340Then I looked at cohabitation of, um, you know, biological parents.
00:37:36.100So the biological parents have not tied the knot.
00:37:41.780There's a much higher risk of violence, like physical violence and emotional violence in the home.
00:37:46.660Um, much higher risk in a cohabiting biological situation that the children will lose connection with at least one of their parents.
00:37:55.460And the children, uh, tend to have, you know, more sexual activity at earlier ages when their parents' relationship, you know, that they, when these children do not grow up, uh, are not born into and raised in a married, a married father-mother situation.
00:38:44.360Um, you know, you look at fatherlessness, so you look at what 85% of incarcerated men are fatherless and we wonder why they got in trouble with the law and they dropped out of school and they had issues with alcoholism and drug addiction and so forth.
00:38:59.580You know, we look at single parenting and even the best intentions of, of parents and there are kids that somehow make it through and all of these areas of brokenness, but when we look at single parenting and we know these kids don't fare as well economically, we know that they're at much higher risk of early sexual activity and so forth.
00:39:18.420And so you move on and you move into remarriage and step-parenting, uh, the children often struggle with, with the, the new parent that's now, uh, is their step-parent and, um, it, it's challenging when you bring two families, two broken families together under one roof.
00:39:37.100Uh, it isn't exactly the Brady Bunch, uh, but anyway, uh, you know, and then when you get to gay parenting and all the different ways that children, uh,
00:39:48.420uh, like myself are come into these situations, we, we're, I mean, obviously conceived heterosexually, but we have, uh, compounding issues because our parent, uh, can have, uh, opposite sex, uh, sexual relationships and same-sex sexual relationships.
00:40:06.620And they can actually swing back and forth between, um, heterosexual and homosexual relationships even throughout our childhoods and into adulthood.
00:40:16.640Now, my father, um, remained, uh, in homosexual relationships throughout, um, you know, my early childhood, into my teens, into my twenties, when, you know, before he died, um, I didn't see him involved with other women.
00:40:32.400But my understanding is that for many of us, we can have this, our parents flipping back and forth, um, that there isn't this stable sexual orientation that, that the left liked to present.
00:40:44.160Um, you know, there's, um, you know, there's, like, eight definitions for lesbianism and there's only one definition for lesbianism, uh, that actually is exclusively lesbian.
00:40:54.160When Lohmann and, um, and other researchers began looking at, uh, human sexuality in the mid-90s, the research there showed that, you know, the majority of men who say they're gay have had and will have opposite-sex sexual relationships.
00:41:12.160They found the same thing with women, the women that said they were lesbian have had and will have, um, you know, opposite-sex sexual relationships.
00:41:22.160So it's, it's, it's really, really confusing, uh, for me, you know, growing up because I didn't look at people, you know, under these, uh, titles of, you know, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transgendered, you know, questioning and so on.
00:41:40.860I didn't look at people under those labels because I saw this whole experimentation going on where people, people were not necessarily labeling themselves.
00:41:51.060That, that came, um, after there was this political legal revolution to change family structures and to destabilize children from their biology.
00:42:02.680Um, and that really has to do with selfish adult desires, not just sexual desires, but treating children like commodities and removing them from their, their ancestry and their roots.
00:42:14.320And trading them back and forth, uh, based on the highest bidder and the most power that you have.
00:42:20.220And, you know, there's a number of, of people that cannot, uh, have children naturally, but if they're heterosexual, you know, um, you know, it just, you know, that's an issue for them.
00:42:32.520But anyone else, they're going to be infertile because biologically speaking, there's no chance that they could ever conceive.
00:42:39.800Two women and two men can't conceive naturally.
00:42:43.480And children, you know, we're real human beings and we begin to recognize that, uh, the image that we're made into, um, doesn't, uh, reflect same sex.
00:42:56.120It reflects male and female, that we need both for our own identity, for our own development.
00:43:03.180We need, we need the, uh, complementary genders interacting with each other in our growing up years for us to truly, truly value who we are as human beings.
00:43:17.180And I think that's what the LGBT movement has left out is what children really need, you know, so they, they, they basically come out with the talking points.
00:43:29.080And if you, as an adult child, start speaking as I have about what it's like to grow up in this, um, they, they often will threaten us.
00:43:39.460Yeah, I bet you've been really attacked because this is like the ultimate taboo.
00:43:48.040That's out of the question to talk about it.
00:43:50.100So how have you been dealing with that?
00:43:51.860Well, you know, you get hate mail, uh, you get verbal threats and you get, um, written threats.
00:43:58.360And in most cases, you know, if, uh, this was being done to, you know, um, someone who says they're gay or lesbian,
00:44:06.860they would have, uh, the person who's, who's making these threats, um, and saying these vulgar, uh, you know, you know, things against you.
00:44:17.520They, they would have, they would make sure those people were charged.
00:44:21.100But in my case, when I get all these, um, email threats, bad emails and vulgar emails,
00:44:27.460I haven't gone and asked for any one of these people to be charged or investigated.
00:44:35.400People keep saying equality, but now it's, they're the protected group and people such as yourself have no protection legally.
00:44:42.400I mean, I, I'm hearing that, you know, people keep saying equality, but now discrimination against churches and pastors seems to be state sanctioned.
00:44:49.440So if you deny same-sex marriage in your church or you share your religious views on homosexuality, you can actually be charged with a hate crime.
00:44:56.060I know Canada, Canada is pretty, uh, forward on that, aren't they?
00:45:00.080In fact, I've had pastors confess to me that they have received, uh, whether they're phone calls or emails of, um, being, you know, basically saying that someone is sitting in another church.
00:45:12.100Usually they're educated and they say they're gay and they're saying, you know, I really like being here.
00:45:18.820Uh, but if you say anything opposed to being gay or anything about the kinds of relationships I have, you know, I just want you to know, I'm kind of putting you on notice.
00:45:29.660I'm going to be sitting in on the sermons and listening.
00:45:32.640And if you say anything I disagree with, I am going to make a complaint.
00:45:37.220And so pastors are being threatened and they are being silenced.
00:45:40.160And we have a fair bit of our denominations.
00:45:44.180Um, and unfortunately it doesn't matter whether one is Catholic, uh, evangelical, Protestant, um, a fair bit have become very politically incorrect.
00:45:54.040And, um, you know, sorry, politically, you know, they're very, very careful in what they're, what they're saying.
00:46:02.400They're, they're trying not to, to, to say anything that would, um, a person who says they're gay or lesbian would, would find offensive.
00:47:03.380However, they have, they have the power to human rights commissions have the right, well, the, the power really to enter your home,
00:47:11.960you know, confiscate your laptop, computers, uh, cell phones, and files, it, you know, looking for hate crime.
00:47:21.420And, uh, even at our border, uh, where you have, um, customs, there are materials that have been stopped at the border, books, DVDs, and the like.
00:47:32.380I know there was a sodomy, uh, documentary put out by a Russian, uh, film company.
00:47:39.560And, um, that was confiscated at the Canadian border being carried over by, um, you know, uh, his name is Peter.
00:48:43.100So you can't easily access all the food you would need or you'd like to have.
00:48:49.180And when the food's available, you stand in line blocks and blocks at a time and you wait until the bread, you can get your loaf of bread or your meat or whatever it is that has just come into the stores.
00:48:59.500Um, as well, you know, people under communism had to be very careful what they said about their
00:49:05.620political leaders and they had to be very careful.
00:49:08.080They didn't put down their, their government leaders, their political party that was in
00:49:22.740And so if you're, if you remember what it's like to live under that kind of state control,
00:49:28.420that kind of regime that takes away your freedom of speech and also restricts your, uh, religious freedom to the point that, you know, you can only go to the state approved churches.
00:49:40.760You can't go to the underground churches and you can't, you cannot freely worship and you cannot, you know, publicly, uh, express your faith in your business or in,
00:49:54.280So your worship, your, your, your religious freedom is restricted to a few hours on Sunday in a state approved church.
00:50:02.540Well, coming out of that, you know, when people come into Canada, they're expecting that, uh, there'll be more freedom here.
00:50:10.360And they're absolutely shocked that all this kind of language and discussion is banned in Canada publicly.
00:50:18.020Whereas, you know, if you go back to different parts of Europe, people are very aware of what it was like to live under a state regime and how restricted speech was and, and religious freedom was restricted.
00:50:30.460And therefore they express all sorts of feelings and thoughts around political and religious, religious topics, you know, and, and, and so they can't imagine that any country, uh, through human rights commissions and hate crime legislation would want to ban speech and, and, and, and, uh, protect certain categories of people, you know, under a special label.
00:50:56.420And, um, you know, it just doesn't make sense.
00:51:01.720I wonder if eventually, cause they keep redefining everything and the control, this is just more and more against certain groups.
00:51:08.180Soon they might even redefine who a parent is, or might even come and try and take your children away because you're teaching them hate.
00:51:14.500Well, this is it in Canada when same sex marriage was legalized, the majority of Canadians did not have a clue that parenting was redefined immediately, uh, with same sex marriage.
00:51:28.580And so what happened when Canada's gay marriage law bill C-38, uh, was passed through and became legal, it included a provision to erase the term natural parent and replace it across the board with gender neutral legal parent in federal law.
00:51:46.400So now all children only have legal parents as defined by the state and by legally erasing biological parenthood in this way, the state ignored and ignores the children's foremost right to know and be raised by their own biological parents.
00:52:07.800I always wonder too, what the long-term effect would be like, let's say in the future, if they went far enough and it's like, oh no, the state raises your kids.
00:52:14.960There's no such thing as a primordial family unit.
00:52:30.500We have some, uh, school policies, excuse me, in place that, uh, you know, use a term called school climate.
00:52:38.600And what that means is that the child, uh, in school, um, you know, is bound by the regulations of the school board within that school and beyond.
00:52:51.960So wherever that child travels as a student of the school, that child's school climate around him is like a bubble and it walks with him.
00:53:02.460So if he gets on the bus and he says something that the bus driver finds, um, hateful or hurtful towards a particular group of people, that bus driver actually has to report, write that down and report it to the school, uh, principal, uh, within a day.
00:53:21.500The school needs to be aware, you know, so police, policing of speech by students, by the teachers and the administration and by the bus drivers and the school counselors and social workers and even the caretaker at the school.
00:53:38.460Well, you know, that policing of speech continues on with the child when that child leaves the school and goes, um, to, you know, the corner store, variety store to pick up a snack or a pop.
00:53:53.420It also travels with a child on field trips.
00:53:56.060Also, if that child meets with other students at the local mall or goes to a movie theater or a number of them or a few of them get together as friends after school at a child's home, um, the school climate is traveling with that child throughout, uh, the child's whole day, not just at the physical location of where the school exists.
00:54:21.980And so with that school climate, it means when the child comes home and opens up, uh, his or her laptop or starts using their cell phone or, or starts, starts communicating on the social networks, that child's speech and anything the child writes, anything the child posts, uh, in photos or illustrations, all of that can be policed, uh, under the school climate, which means even the parents can be investigated.
00:54:50.980If, if, uh, somehow the school finds out.
00:55:17.960Uh, I've done all sorts of interesting things, but I homeschooled.
00:55:20.980And one thing I would say to anyone who is homeschooling, they don't have to be Christian, Catholic, religious at all.
00:55:28.100They could be Jewish or they could be secular.
00:55:30.000It doesn't matter that I would recommend anyone and everyone that's homeschooling to join homeschooling legal defense association for that nominal fee to educate your child at home.
00:55:41.840Um, that membership with HSLDA will offer you a level of protection like nothing else.
00:55:50.860If, if, uh, you're in a situation where the social worker or supervisor comes from the school or from the government to, you know, to your door, they will actually give you legal advice on how you're, you're to handle that situation.
00:56:04.680And we do have, um, we call them, um, you know, family services or children's aid.
00:56:11.200We do have government employees that can potentially come to your door and investigate.
00:56:17.240Um, and, and they may be looking for abuse, they say, and I put that in quotes and that abuse could be, you're teaching your child something very different.
00:56:25.460Uh, that they don't, they really disapprove of.
00:56:28.900And so it's very, very important, um, to, to have, uh, a community of people where you have connection and protection under, um, HSLDA membership.
00:56:39.620The other thing that I would recommend too is be very watchful and careful in who you're associating with.
00:56:48.240You have to, and we have, um, you know, the other issue that we have is because we are just,
00:56:55.460legal parents now in Canada under same-sex marriage.
00:56:58.520And we have only, you know, been legal parents for the last 10 years.
00:57:03.020The state does have the power to enter our homes if they feel there is a, um, a reason to do so.
00:57:10.660And we, we saw that happen with an Orthodox Jewish community who actually, uh, the majority of them left Canada, uh, because of state interference.
00:57:21.320Because they were not teaching curriculum, uh, to their students, to their children, um, that agreed with the state's curriculum.
00:57:29.740I thought the Jews were very protected in Canada.
00:57:33.680You know, they will go after the vulnerable small groups first.
00:57:38.320Um, you know, they will, they will go after, um, you know, individuals and, and families and groups that may not be as, um, as protected as other groups in the sense they're not as assimilated within the community.
00:57:54.800And don't have the, the network of supports around them.
00:57:59.620Um, you know, this is the challenge is that if you see vulnerable groups, um, having to leave the country, then you understand as parents that, you know, how long will you have your freedom as a parent?
00:58:12.120To be making the choices to teach your children certain values and beliefs and your faith in the privacy of your own home.
00:58:21.560How long will you have that freedom before someone knocks on your door?
00:58:26.380And if you're, uh, a careful parent, you have to always be prepared for that in Canada under our hate crime legislation and under same-sex marriage.
00:58:35.480And with our human rights commissions and tribunal, um, that we, we are at risk, we're at a higher risk.
00:58:43.820Um, and so we must be very careful before we open our front door.
00:58:48.660And we have to remember that what kind of future are we creating for our children if we don't fight this now?
00:58:54.220I mean, think of where your grandchildren could be living.
00:58:57.220I just had a couple more questions for you.
00:58:59.480What would you say to other adults who have grown up like you?
00:59:02.280They're learning to cope with their parents' choices and they don't know how to handle it.
00:59:06.200Well, I would say face the reality of it.
00:59:08.400It's a lot harder to do than what I just said.
00:59:26.660You have to sift through it and, um, you know, love your parents, appreciate them, uh, value the different men and women that were in your life growing up,
00:59:37.200whether you agreed with them or not, whether you like them or not.
00:59:41.260Um, you know, really just look at everyone as, as a valuable human being and love them.
00:59:46.680Um, at the same time, recognize where there's, there's losses, those permanent losses and deficiencies and, um, recognize that our whole identity is not just wrapped up in our sexuality and gender.
00:59:59.840That is, you know, very, very important to our identity, but it's not all that we are.
01:00:06.220And that any inclinations that we have, that doesn't have to become our identity.
01:00:11.580Um, also forgive those people around you that have hurt you.
01:00:15.080Um, it's really important to practice forgiveness on a daily basis.
01:00:19.280Um, you know, I know that there are people that are, uh, Christians, Catholics, uh, you know, they believe in, in forgiveness, but I would say, you know, whether you're religious or not, forgive.
01:00:45.080Um, but you can live day to day and enjoy the beauty around you and appreciate the people in your life.
01:00:52.380Um, you can love more deeply and more intimately, uh, when you're, uh, you have faced the reality of the painful past, when you've forgiven those who've hurt you.
01:01:02.340And when you move forward and making the best choices possible.
01:01:06.300Um, I'd encourage everyone to buy your book too and help support your work because you're doing important work.
01:01:11.380But I wanted to ask you, why is your message so critical now?
01:01:14.100Well, you know, I, this is not really about ego.
01:01:17.580Um, I was compelled to write when I got home, um, in, in 2004, after testifying before Canada's Senate of Legal and Constitutional Affairs on hate crime legislation.
01:01:29.840I was compelled to write my book because I felt like, oh my goodness, they're going to make it a hate crime that I come up and say something that hurts the feelings of certain men and women around me.
01:01:42.840Or, um, you know, men or women that are like my father who was in, you know, involved with same-sex partners.
01:01:49.280And so I thought, you know, I got to write down my story.
01:01:52.120People have to understand that, um, what it's like for a child to grow up in this.
01:01:57.760So I wrote Out from Under the Impact of Homosexual Parenting and I published it in the States because, uh, for a number of reasons, uh, you know, the major reason,
01:02:10.120I wasn't sure if Canada would allow my book across the border and we don't have the distribution network that the United States has and our, uh, postal system charges, uh, probably double to triple what you charge in the States.
01:02:25.820And so, um, you know, I thought my book would be more accessible being published in America.
01:02:31.060And I also felt that, uh, with my story out there, that more adult children would come forward to share their stories, which is actually what's happened.
01:02:38.740And that legislators would take a step back and really consider before they change laws around marriage, um, really consider the impact on children.
01:02:50.680And so that was really the purpose of my book.
01:02:53.060And I state that in my preface, uh, my book is, um, it can be read in just a matter of, um, you know, a few days, but I would recommend people take coffee breaks.
01:03:03.860Because there are difficult passages in the book and especially if someone is an adult child that, um, this, this could hit home in a number of ways, very personally.
01:03:15.240And, um, I also recommend if, if people have issues, you know, they're still very stressed about it.
01:03:21.440If they have anxiety issues or any other, um, risk factors that they seek counseling and, and get the kind of support that they need and, uh, that would, uh, respect their faith values and their beliefs around sexuality and gender, marriage, and family.
01:03:40.920Well, Dawn, please share your website details and also let people know how, how they can get your book and any upcoming speaking engagements you might have.
01:03:47.260Well, the, um, I have a website I've had since 2006 and it is, uh, filled with news articles and research.
01:04:40.820I've had done a different media interviews, but as for speaking engagements, because of the political and legal risks with what I am doing publicly,
01:04:52.060I usually do not announce publicly where I'm next speaking.