Change the World Instead
This is too beautiful.
This excerpt is from "Gay Rights Advocate Blends in and Stands Apart", by Robin Finn, in The New York Times, a profile of Susan Somer, "the lead lawyer for Lambda Legal's landmark, if unresolved, litigation to secure the right for same-sex couples to marry in New York City" (who, as it happens, is not herself a lesbian, but she's happy to let people think so).
"We were at a gathering after the birth of my first son, and there was a family there with twin 4-year-old boys, and one was running around like a warrior and the other was playing with dolls," she recalls. When she complimented the parents on their twins' individuality, they told her they planned to take the doll-playing son to a specialist, not because he might turn out gay, but because they worried he would have a complicated life if he did. "They said it bothered them that he wouldn't have the same rights as his brother, wouldn't be able to get married if he wanted to."
The conversation stayed with her. "I had that new-parent feeling that I didn't want my child growing up in a world like that," says Ms. Sommer, who grew up in Roslyn Heights on Long Island and graduated from Yale Law School. "I thought that what we have to do is change the world around the child. […]"