Friendly faces

The morning was cold and damp on Sunday, and the playground equipment was slick with morning dew, but it wasn't enough to put a chill on the Sacramento Out-N-About Parents Meetup Group.

The new, loosely organized gathering drew gay and lesbian parents from throughout the region to mingle at Sacramento's Southside Park, while their children happily explored the celestially themed Universal Universe playground.

It was the second such "meetup," organized through the social networking Web site meetup.com. Judging from what organizers said was larger turnout than the inaugural meeting, the group is filling a long-standing void in the community.

"We were looking for a venue for our kids," explained Robin Miyata, an organizer of Sunday's event and the mother of a 2 1/2-year-old girl. "I have a big family, but it's pretty traditional and heterosexual. We think it's important for our kids to see different family arrangements, more like our own."

Although most of the children in the park on Sunday were too young to understand the social implications of having same-sex parents, their moms and dads nonetheless wanted them to feel part of a larger community.

From within that community, many kinds of families were in attendance. One was a lesbian couple, accompanied by their son and his biological father, who shares custody with the couple. Other couples brought their foster children, including some in the process of being adopted by their lesbian or gay foster parents.

Still others brought their older children who were born during prior, heterosexual relationships.

Jaye Simpson, a mother of three boys, came out as a lesbian several years ago and said she felt alone at the time.

She came to the park Sunday with her partner, Rhonda Taylor, and her youngest boys, 13-year-old Ben and 10-year-old Patrick.

"I had no support, I had no friends who were gay parents," she said of the past. "Everyone I knew was straight. They didn't understand anything I was dealing with. For me, this is a godsend."

Stephanie Doute, with her partner, Heather Drouillard, and their 5-month-old son, Colton, said she couldn't imagine having raised a child as a gay parent even a decade ago.

"It would have been a lot more scary to think about having a baby and what he would have to go through," she said. "Look at all these kids. They are all thriving and happy."

Stephanie Bailey and her partner, Denise Gardner, came without children in tow. The two have been waiting a month to become foster parents for a child they hope to adopt.

"We can't wait, we already have a nursery all set up," said Bailey, who was taking snapshots of a friend's recently adopted son. "This group for us is a chance to meet people so that once we get a (foster child) placement, we will know other families that we have stuff in common with."

Gardner said they expect to need the support, since many people still deem same-sex parenting as unnatural, even immoral.

Just as racism persists, she said, gays and lesbians – and their children – are subject to prejudice and hate.

"You need to balance those negative messages with five times as many positive ones, just to make sure you grow up positive about yourself," Gardner said.

Watching his own adopted son and two nephews swirling around on the park's metal spinning disk, Matthew Woodson noted how growing up in a diverse environment seemed natural for his and the other children.

"A lot of us had to struggle just to start our families," he said. "Yet all these kids are just so normal and average."

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