Dear Garrison Keillor, your apology is accepted, but I'm still sad.

By Diane Silver

Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor has issued an apology for his ill-thought-out piece slamming gay parents. He says it was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek humor, but didn't work so well. Keillor writes that he really does respect gays and thinks we can be good parents. You can read his apology here.

I accept his apology and his explanation, but I still wonder how he could be so off. Did he really not know that the religious right is working darn near every day to take our children away from us?

The right claims that we aren't fit to be parents, so a "joke" claiming the same thing isn't terribly funny, not if you're a mother or father terrified of losing custody of your child.

Was Keillor so uninformed that he didn't know about the political, verbal and sometimes physical attacks we endure? I'm sure he didn't miss the fact that states are passing bans on our right to marry.

Dan Savage has a good, detailed rundown of what is wrong with Keillor's apology. I won't spend time repeating what Savage wrote.

I believe Keillor is a good man who meant no harm. What strikes me, though, is that Keillor is like so many other straight people I know. They're our friends, our coworkers and our neighbors. Sometimes they're our brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins. They don't have a homophobic bone in their bodies, and yet, they just don't get it. They seem to be blind to what we face.

Because of their inability to see, they often vote against us. And that has tragic consequences.

By the way, I'm not saying that Keillor does that. I'm also not saying that every straight person is blind to our pain. I know for a fact that isn't true. Many heterosexuals work hard for the Kansas Equality Coalition, for example. Others are personal friends who know exactly the dangers and problems we face. However, far too many have allowed themselves to be lulled into thinking that everything is really OK; after all, they think, it's just a couple of crazies like Fred Phelps who cause us problems.

I remember when we fought the ban on same-sex marriage here in Kansas. I remember straight friends saying that of course they support us, but what's the harm in the ban? Straight folks I love and care about have told me that they don't see why I need a law to protect myself from discrimination. They ask: Don't we all have the same rights?

Well, actually, we don't. If you're a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered person in this nation, you have few legal rights. Here's a "fun" one people tend to forget: We don't even have the right to visit our spouses in the hospital. We can be kept away from an injured or dying loved one by a bigoted nurse, a doctor or another family member.

I am not going to attack Keillor for not being smarter than the folks I know here in Kansas, but I am going to ask him and all the rest to wake up.

We are your neighbors, and we are being bullied to death. It's time for you to see what's happening, and it's time for you to stand with us.

Once again, I accept Keillor's apology. I am sad, though, that it was even needed.

Garrison Keillor, where have you gone?

By Diane Silver

The liberal blogosphere is exploding over a short essay Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor posted at Salon.com. In the piece called "Stating the Obvious," Keillor appears to denigrate lesbian and gay families. In this essay, we are shown to not just be jokes, but to hurt our own children with our lifestyle.

Some bloggers are now saying they think it is a satire, and they do make a case for that being so. Many are appalled. The best collection of opinions and links are at Pam's House Blend and Americablog.

Put me in the appalled, surprised and -- if this is true -- in the mourning column. I sincerely hope this is a ham-handed satire gone bad. If not, I am truly upset.

I am disturbed that someone of Keillor's stature and influence would have such ill-informed opinions and then go ahead and disseminate them as if they are the "obvious" truth.

I am, frankly, surprised as all get out because Keillor never seemed to me to be this sort of person. I know people who have worked directly with him, and they've never reported anything like this.

And if this is what Keillor really thinks, then I am in mourning. I have always been a fan. I'll never be able to listen to Praire Home Companion again.

The only other thing I can say is that whether or not these are his opinions, they are the opinions of many people. I suppose that wouldn't matter, except that those uninformed opinions effect people's votes. Those votes have put into place a host of unfair and nasty laws that keep the children of lesbians and gays from health insurance and other legal rights and benefits they need.

The realities of our lives are far different than they are often painted. I explore some of that in two pieces.

Winning the lesbian parent marathon

Living with a target on your back

I've written directly to Keillor to verify what he intended with this piece and to tell him about my concerns. If I ever get a reply, I'll let you know.