Gay Dads Welcome New Baby in Lexington, KY

Lexington, KY, Herald-Leader ^ | 01-10-04 | Spears, Valarie Honeycutt

[Theodore R.]

Gay dads welcome new baby By Valarie Honeycutt Spears HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

The two Lexington gay men who made worldwide news by parenting quadruplets had a fifth child yesterday with the help of the same biological mother.

The baby, named Brandon Lane Dysarz, was born shortly after 8 a.m. at Lexington's Central Baptist Hospital by a planned Caesarean section, according to Lexington hair stylist Thomas Dysarz, the baby's biological father.

"He looks just like me," said Dysarz, who said the healthy boy weighed in at 8 pounds, 9 ounces.

The birth, like the July 26, 2002, birth of the quadruplets, is a result of in-vitro fertilization.

The biological father of the quadruplets is Dysarz' domestic partner, Michael Meehan, a Lexington attorney. As with the first four babies, Meehan and Dysarz will share parenting duties.

Just 10 months after giving birth to the quadruplets, the mother, Brooke Verity of Nicholasville, became pregnant with Brandon through in-vitro fertilization.

And there's likely to be more children on the horizon for the men. Dysarz said within two or three years, he expects that Verity's eggs will be implanted into a second surrogate mother so that Dysarz can have more than one biological child.

Verity, 25, was resting yesterday at the hospital and declined to be interviewed, according to Dysarz. But in an interview last spring, she said she agreed to have another child for the couple because they wanted more children, and "I wanted all the babies to be related."

Verity, who has three children of her own, initially agreed to conceive a child with Meehan because she thought he and Dysarz would be good parents, she said.

Yesterday, Dysarz said Verity has put on hold plans to terminate her parental rights to the quadruplets and to the new baby because of the difficulty she faced last spring in Jessamine Circuit Court.

An attorney appointed by the court to represent the quadruplets said in a report that the children would be better off if Verity remained their legal mother.

Specifically, the report said the babies need a mother and a father. It disagreed with Verity's decision that the quadruplets' biological father, Meehan, and his partner, Dysarz, would be the quadruplets' parents. Verity withdrew her request to terminate her parental rights in Jessamine County before a judge could rule. She has not tried again to terminate rights, Dysarz said.

The family struggled with another controversy in November 2002, when the anti-gay Kansas minister Fred Phelps traveled to Lexington to protest the quadruplets' baptism at the Cathedral of Christ the King.

In response to Phelps' protest, Central Kentucky residents rallied around the men and launched a counterdemonstration, Rally for a Hate-Free Lexington.

In previous interviews, Verity said she visits with the quadruplets about once a month.

Meanwhile, Dysarz said he plans to hire an au pair to help care for the growing family.

ABC-TV has been following Meehan and Dysarz' situation since they announced the quadruplets' impending births.

Diane Sawyer has interviewed Meehan, Dysarz and Verity and a segment is scheduled to air within the next few months, ABC officials said yesterday.

Dysarz said he didn't anticipate that the household would see dramatic changes when Brandon comes home, probably early next week.

"One baby should be very easy," he said.

[VOA]

"Gay Dads Welcome New Baby in Lexington, KY"

I'm suprised that carnival operators haven't hit the Gay, Lesbian, and Transgendered
crowd with an unfair competition lawsuit.

[luckymom]

This is worthy of a "Barf Alert"

[Essie]

This is not new. A few years ago, the Arts and Entertainment network had a special about two gay men who were raising two girls around the age of ten. If my memory serves me, each of the men had fathered one of the girls with a surrogate mother. What haunts my memory is the girls being interviewed about the situation and saying that they approved. How can any responsible adult ask a child that kind of question?

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Who says KY is "conservative" now?

[Theodore R.]

No, moral corruption is never "new", is it? I did not mean to imply that this situation is particularly abnormal in this continuing Age of Clinton.

[Smocker]

The whole thing is deranged.
Verity wanted all the babies to be related, what about the 3 she has in her own marriage, are they to be considered step brothers and sisters of the gay couples' children?

Are they being deprived of the company of their siblings?


Depriving the babies of baptism would have been wrong anyway, it would have been punishing the children for the parents' sins.

So the two guys sharing parenting duties are also hiring an aupair. Wonder will it be a lesbina, gay or straight female or male? How does one sort it all out?

what if they 'divorce'? Or don't gays divorce?

Sad, very sad. symptomatic of a sick society.

[Stonewall Jackson]

To be quite honest I don't know about any laws on the books that allow or don't allow this type of "adoption", but I do know that here in rural Kentucky there has been quite a bit of excitement about this, most of it decidedly against such actions. Unfortunately, nearly half of the state's population is in Louisville and Lexington (our versions of New York City and San Francisco), so it will be quite hard to get a law banning such "adoptions" onto the books.

[Republican Wildcat]

Downtown Lexington is pretty much San Francisco-lite.

[Theodore R.]

Lexington must be so corrupt that Henry Clay would have to relocate were he still living.

[Republican Wildcat]

I'm afraid you are correct. You should look up some of the things the mayor there has done. She's trying to become a despot. The council has reigned her in a few times, but not enough and sometimes goes right along with her over the cliff. The Courts have had to step in a couple of times, too.