The American Academy of Pediatrics recently announced support for gays adopting because, basically, gay parents are no different than heterosexual ones.

I have two words in response: Well, duh.

I don't mean to be dismissive. It's just that those of us who have been raising our children here on the ground level know this already. We've seen it in action. A new pronouncement by some "credible" organization stating the obvious seems almost silly: "Studies show that loving parents are good for children!"

I guess unless you've seen it in flesh and blood, one could theoretically say it's not such a good idea. But, I bet the hearts of even hardened conservatives would melt if they read in "An American Family" about Michael Galluccio's first encounter with the infant he and his partner, Jon, would later adopt. This 3-month old was premature. He was HIV-positive. He had hepatitis C, tuberculosis, respiratory problems and a hole in his heart. He trembled from drug withdrawal.

When Michael and Jon walked into the group home where the infant was staying, they found him in a baby swing.

Michael wrote:

"The baby was staring right at me. For what seemed like hours, all I beheld was the sight of this child and the click-click, click click of the baby swing. I stared at the baby and in an instant I fell deeply in love for the second time in my life. There would be nothing I would not do for him. My son. He was sick, and he might be dying, and he was beautiful."

Sounds like a dad to me.

Instead of reading studies, those judges, legislators, adoption agencies or religious folk who question the wisdom of allowing gays to adopt should spend time around the children of gays and lesbians. As long as you're thinking in the abstract, you might want to debate gays adopting. But when it's in front of you, your worries may melt.

When I first told my mother over the phone that my partner, Terry, and I were expecting a baby, she gasped.

"Oh, my God." (Pause). "I'll talk to you later."

Click.

When I was pregnant with my second child, the response wasn't much better. Silence. My two sisters didn't speak to me until months after Noah was born.

It's not that my relatives are bigoted, unkind or unloving. They'd never had much exposure to gays; their religion didn't condone gay relationships; and they just didn't approve.

And they probably still don't. But they sure love our kids.

I treasure the image of my father playing cards with Noah, then about 4 years old, inside the camper trailer one night in Central Florida. They were playing War. (Terry, who didn't like that name, renamed it Struggle). It was my father's turn to lay a card down. Noah's bright eyes looked up coaxingly, and he pointed his index finger at him as if to say, "Your turn!" They went on this way for hours.

Another time, after my parents had come to visit us and were about to return to South Florida, my older son, David, looked gloomy. He didn't want them to go. Even though he didn't say anything out loud, my mother picked up on it instantly and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "We'll see you soon," she said reassuringly.

Then one day, without any prompting, Mom said, "I think you and Terry are doing a good job of raising the boys."

I almost fell over.

But that's the way of the human heart. Love goes right to the source.

Michael Galluccio writes about his father's first meeting with his and Jon's new son, Adam. Initially, his father was cool, smiling weakly from the back of the room. Then Michael's mother, who had been cooing over the baby, coaxed him over.

"Dad moved forward and took Adam from my mother. He held the baby up in front of him and looked him in the face. The man of fifty-seven and the child just three months old stared at each other, man to man, for a long, long moment. Dad gazed at Adam. Adam gazed gravely back. I watched as my father's eyes began to glisten and then thicken with tears. When he blinked, the tears ran down his face and he held Adam tightly to him."

Sounds like a granddad to me.

Contact Sharon Rauch at (850) 671-6539 or srauch@taldem.com