Over the years Adolph Galluccio, like any proud Italian-American patriarch, has rejoiced at each of his children's weddings, till only his oldest son, Michael, remained. Today -- Father's Day -- will finally be Michael's turn, but the ceremony will not be the sort Adolph Galluccio once imagined for his boy.

At the Episcopal Church of the Atonement in Fair Lawn, Michael Galluccio will pledge his commitment to Jon Holden, the man he has loved for 16 years.

"I grew up with all the assumptions of a heterosexual world, in a traditional family and a traditional church," said Adolph Galluccio, a hard- nosed, well-respected defense attorney in Paterson. "I used to have all the answers. Now I don't have any."

This is a story about a son and a father who nearly lost one another, about love and the fight for acceptance. It has not been an easy passage for any of the Galluccios, least of all for Adolph, but it has been an illuminating one.

Even as Michael and Jon continue to make headlines for nursing a sick little boy to health and forcing the state to accept adoptions by gay couples, Adolph Galluccio has struggled to understand a part of his son that for a long time made him shudder.

"There were a lot of years that I thought: They lied about love being unconditional," said Michael, a sales director for Sprint who lives in Maywood with Jon, their adopted son, Adam, and their foster daughter, Madison. "As the years went on, it got a little better, but still I wondered if it was just 'I love you because you're my son, I love you because I have to.'... I thought accepting my being gay was too much for my dad. But I've learned there's a lot more to him than I ever realized before."

When Michael fell in love with his fraternity brother 16 years ago, the news was a bruising awakening for Adolph Galluccio, the sort of man used to setting the rules and having them followed. Now 59, Adolph was raised in one of Paterson's Italian neighborhoods, Riverside, where family ties were holy and children knew never to question parents. Homosexuality was foreign to those streets -- or so people believed, because they wanted to.

For the first nine years of Michael's life, his family lived with his maternal grandparents in a colonial on 18th Street in Paterson. Every Saturday, Adolph and Michael walked, hand in hand, the four blocks to Johnny's Luncheonette, where Adolph had met his wife, Dot, more than a decade earlier. There, Adolph would play pinball as Michael drank chocolate milk and pestered his dad for a turn.

Sundays, the family walked the two blocks to Blessed Sacrament Church, where nearly every week Adolph Galluccio still prays.

In the courtroom, Galluccio quickly earned a reputation as a bulldog who worked relentlessly for his clients. "He certainly is a formidable adversary," said Bruno Mongiardo, a Ridgewood attorney and onetime Passaic County assistant prosecutor who often faced off against Galluccio. "If you're not prepared, he'll beat your brains up ... But he always played by the rules, and he expected everyone else to, too."

It was no different at home. Each night, Adolph arrived by 6:30 for dinner -- even if he had to return to the courthouse afterward -- and each of the four kids knew they had better be there. There were certain things the Galluccios expected from their children, and all were loath to disappoint their parents. For that reason Michael panicked when, as a Glassboro State sophomore, he found himself falling in love with a young pledge at Tau Kappa Epsilon. Within a few months, Dot Galluccio sensed that something was amiss and confronted Michael.

Horrified at his son's answer, Adolph ordered his son to a psychiatrist, telling him homosexuality was unnatural and disgusting.

When Dot and her mother went to a support group in Greenwich Village for families of homosexuals, Adolph refused to go. "Adolph was devastated," Dot said. "He was terrified he'd lose business, that we'd be embarrassed if word got out."

When their closest friends made biting jokes at dinner parties about "fags," the Galluccios said nothing. Afterward, Dot said, "my husband and I would go home and cry."

Within a year, Michael and Jon -- whose family was more accepting -- packed up for California to escape the "closet" into which the Galluccios had put them and which they had willingly entered.

"We thought we'd never have him back," said Dot. "He went to protect us. We drove him away. Nothing's worth that.

"Even if your child is on death row, any decent parent stands by him. How could we turn our back on our son when his only sin was loving?"

Over time, the family came to accept Jon as a permanent part of Michael's life, without ever actually acknowledging why. It was as if everyone had agreed simply not to discuss the fact that the two men were in love.

Adolph continued to wish things were different. Most of those "middle years," as he calls them, remain a blur, but he does remember one moment while celebrating at his other son's wedding in 1991 when he looked, in pain, at Michael and prayed for "a reversal."

Three years ago, Michael and Jon announced their intent to adopt a child -- another "bombshell" exploding the world as Adolph had come to understand it. That wasn't all. For the first time since Michael realized he was gay, he insisted his parents stop pretending he was straight. No child of his, he said, was going to live with the shame of denial.

Ever so tentatively, the elder Galluccios came out to their friends and family. Some recoiled; most did not. Ten of their closest buddies -- even a few who once denigrated gays -- attended the state Lesbian and Gay Coalition banquet last April to honor Michael and Jon's contribution to the gay rights cause.

Even so, the evening was tough for Adolph. When the hotel concierge greeted the Galluccios and asked which banquet they were attending, Adolph could not find his voice. "The one for lesbians and gays," he whispered.

But there he sat, surrounded by his truest friends, watching Michael ascend the stage, his arm slung around Jon. As the audience rose in a standing ovation, Adolph got to his feet to join them, weeping in a tangle of emotions so confusing that even later, he could not say what they were.

"Look, I wasn't happy about Michael's situation, and I would have changed it if I could, but I've had to come to grips with that," he said. "I've been a criminal lawyer for 32 years. I've seen everything bad: I've seen kids taking drugs, beating up their mothers, fighting with their fathers, and I said, 'If this is the worst of it with Michael, well, we come in all shapes and sizes.' I have to be thankful for what I have."

Adam, of course, has helped, as grandchildren often do. Adolph takes him for regular walks, just as he does with his other grandchildren. "Come by Poppy," Adolph says, and Adam races over. These days, when Adolph calls his son's house and Jon answers, Adolph says, "Hi, Jon. It's Dad."

"You know, five years ago, if I could have changed Michael, I would have, but at this point, I wouldn't want that," Adolph said, seeming surprised by his own words. "I wouldn't want to see him and Jon separated. It would be so hurtful, they're so good for each other and make each other so happy, and now there's also Adam and Madison to consider." He faltered. "I just wish my father would see it that way."

Although Adolph refuses to talk about the strains with his 85-year-old father, Michael said, "My dad feels very torn between his love, respect, and obligation to his father and his love, respect, and obligation to his son."

Even for Adolph, acceptance is an ongoing process. Just last month, the family tearfully rehashed it all after dinner at Adolph and Dot's. Once again, they chastised Michael and Jon for insisting on publicizing their commitment ceremony. Michael stood his ground.

I am making the ceremony open and political for all the people still ashamed of being gay, he said. Imagine, he implored, knowing there are places where you can go to jail just for expressing love, where your family is considered illegitimate, where police run bomb-sniffing dogs through the church before a commitment ceremony.

Which is exactly what they are doing today in Fair Lawn.

Afterward, as Michael got up to leave, Adolph hugged him tightly. "I hate it when you make so much sense," he said.

Michael walked out and sobbed in relief.

"It turns out he really is the dad I had when I was a little kid: a conquer-the-world, limitless dad, someone I've come to really love and respect," said Michael. "He's gone that extra mile, for me, just for me. For a while there he was so blatantly, disappointingly human. But it's different now. It's kind of like, I've always had my father, but now, I have my dad back."