RE./'l\:lAX North I’r0fessi0na1s 463 Mountain View Drive Suite 200 Colchester, VT 05446 Phone: 802-655-3333 X45 Fax: 802-655-0400 Email: Rob@Condoguy.com 20 Charming Rooms ‘Peace & Privacy 2% ‘H1 Iandg ‘Inn :E(iit1B;inxer1:i.8NH 03574 603-869-3978 - 1-877-LES-B-INN (537-2466) A LESBIAN PARADISE 100 Acres - Pool Hot Tub 0 Trails wwwhighlandsinn-nh.com vacation@highlandsinn-nh.com I0"! I out In the Mountains t I Wants Mountain Pride Media, publisher of Out In The Mountains, depends on community members to help keep our paper out in the community. Can you volunteer about an hour a month as a distribution volunteer? Its easy, fun, and helps to keep the cost of producing and distributing our paper down. . . We need help with the following distribution routes: Bennington, VT: 13 Stops Putney VT/ Keene NH: 9 stops Plattsburgh, NY: 6 Stops We need couriers to deliver papers to our distribution volunteers throughout the state. I It you regular travel by Richmond on your ’way to work or home and would be willing to transport papers, please contact us! oitm @mountainpridemedia.org W ’re also seekin illed writers & photographers. Call our recruiting office if you think you’ve got the goods! G et Walk-in Oral HIV Testing at Vermont CARES free, anonymous, no needles 1-800-649-2437 27 South Main St. Rutland 802-775-5884 Every Wednesday I Oam-l pm 39 Barre St. Suite 1 Montpelier 802-229-4560 Fridays 2-5pm 361 Pearl St. Burlington 802-863-2437 Mondays 4pm-7pm 1235 Hospital Dr., Suite 2' St. Johnsbury 802-748-9061 Wednesdays 3-6pm Choosing Fatherhood David Straws 24 Stories inspire Gay Parents BY Scorr SHERMAN or most straight cou- ples, parenthood — should they want it # comes pretty easily. A little fooling around, nine months of pickles and ice cream, a few hours of labor and voila, as Joan Rivers once tastefully put it, look who’s here on a leash. Gay couples have it much harder. Ignoring, for now, the societal prejudices and legal barriers we may face, gay parenting brings a hundred other questions: Considering surrogacy? Do you find an anonymous egg/sperm donor or make a baby with a friend? Who car- ries the fetus? Is surrogacy - even legal in your state? What if someone changes their mind? What about adoption? Domestic or international? Special needs or non-dis- abled? Do you want an infant or a toddler? Would you con- sider an older child? How about a child of another race? The list goes on and on. David Strah, in his wonderful celebration of gay fatherhood, Gay Dads, (co- written with Susanna Margolis) answers none of those questions for you. In his brief introduction, and in the portraits of gay families that follow, Strah takes no sides. Regardless of how you got the kids, every gay family, in his eyes, is a work of art: beautiful, priceless and one- of-a-kind. Thankfully, Strah rec- ognizes that works of art don’t need fancy framing. Gay Dads consists of 24 chapters, each telling the story of a different gay family (the last, Strah’s own). Strah tells their tales in language that is blessedly clear and direct. He doesn’t distract us with fussy prose or political polemics, letting his subjects speak for themselves. - And although each of the chapters is fairly short — about nine or ten pages apiece -—you’ll really feel like you’ve gotten to know these remark- ably unremarkable families. For each family, Strah describes how the parents-to- be decided from where their children would come. Just about every conceivable option is presented: surroga- cy, domestic and international adoption, biracial households, foster parenting and co-par- Strah’s stories are accompanied by black-and- white pictures of each of the families. Like Strah’s writing, the photos, taken-by Kris Timden, are marvelously unpretentious and don’t get in the way of letting their sub- jects shine through. I only wish the photographs were larger, but I suppose I’ll have to wait until the coffee-table book version for that. As a gay dad myself, I wish I’d had Strah’s book as inspiration during those moments when parenthood Regardless of how you got the kids, every gay family, in Strah’s eyes, is a work of art: beautiful, priceless and one-of-a-kind. enting are all covered. The stories are also varied in the amount of strug- gle the parents endured to become parents. For some families, their children arrived as easily and welcomed as the sun on a Vermont summer day. Others faced — and over- came —’all kinds of bigotry and obstacles, from resistant families to hostile social workers to swastika-painting , neighbors. Strah treats all these families equally. No one’s story is presented any less dramatically than anyone else’s. The author knows that every tale in this book is worth telling, and his respect and affection for his subjects shines through. seemed impossibly far away. However, I’m glad I have it now, to read about families like mine, and to share with family and friends. Openly gay men who are choosing to become par- ents are often swimming headfirst into new and untest- ed waters. We couldn’t ask - for a better guide than Strah to show us the way. He does- n’t try to teach us how to swim, but, by illuminating the navigational paths of others, he shows us how rewarding diving in can be. V Scott Sherman lives with his partner and son in Richmond.