Michigan dads have been chosen to come to Washington DC
after their work in fighting against anti-gay adoption laws.
June 13, 2013
Meet Kent and Diego Love-Ramirez, the two fathers of two-year-old Lucas.
The two Michigan dads have been invited to the White House for the Father’s Day celebrations this Friday (14 June).
Back in 2011, the two dads were there when Lucas was born. In Love-Ramirez’s words, they have been ‘very attentive and very intentional parents’ ever since.
When the invitation arrived last week from the White House, they considered it an honor and a validation.
‘For us, it’s especially meaningful,’ Kent Love-Ramirez told the Lansing State Journal. ‘Because Michigan doesn’t have second parent adoption, we’re not both legally recognized as Lucas’ fathers. Only one of us is.’
He added: ‘It’s nice that even though we don’t have legal recognition in our home state that the White House has seen fit to include us.’
The couple have volunteered for the Family Equality Council, and also launched a petition against a bill allowing Michigan adoption agencies to discriminate against gay couples.
‘By all accounts, our adoptive story is a perfect example of how children in need should find their way to loving families,’ Love-Ramirez said at the time.
‘Yet these bills threaten to allow bigotry and individual subjectivity to trump the state’s criteria for determining the eligibility of a family.’
The couple were picked when the White House was looking for names of ‘dynamic father leaders’.
But there is one small problem to being chosen to represent gay families at the White House – they won’t actually be together for Father’s Day.
Diego Love-Ramirez is a pilot for Delta Air Lines and is currently being trained on a new aircraft in Atlanta. As he will be in Washington DC on Friday, he’ll have to make up the training when everyone will be celebrating Father’s Day on Sunday.
‘But we’re OK with that,’ Love-Ramirez said. ‘We’ll be apart for Father’s Day, but we’ll be together for this.'
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"Fear Eats the Soul"
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