Abraham’s Child: One Child Many Fathers

By Travis Knoll

I am Abraham’s child, the

child of a man who risked

everything to receive a

blessing. I was ten when I

first heard the words “I am

gay” from my adoptive

father. It had been four

years since he adopted me

in the” Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” era. For years he had been telling me that some

men “liked” other men and that I should not judge them for that. Of course, at that

age, I was a year or two away from “liking” anyone (of either gender) anyway, but

I did know that being “gay” was something to be feared, something you had to

deny in front of your 4th grade friends. Anytime someone did not get along with

you, and you would spend the night at your best friend’s house, they would make

innuendoes as best as 4th graders know how. At the time I was just plain scared.

My father was a “gay.” With these taunts in my head, and imaginings the horror

of the discovery of my father’s secrets by the rest of the world, I blurted, “Just

shoot me!”

Of course my father was patient with me and calmly explained that being

gay was not much different than being straight and that society just did not quite

understand him yet. He also told me that he would not tell any of my friends that

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he was gay so as to give me freedom with my own life. This gesture raises a

larger question: Why the need to deny part of himself to the world so that being

who one is does not hurt those around him? Why, like Abraham left Ur for

Canaan, did father have to leave his past life to raise a child?

Before I could understand my father’s sacrifice, I would need to

understand the other half of my father’s life, the one separate from our suburban

life.

I was in 5th-6th grade when we realized we had black mold in the house we

owned, due to a tenant’s washing machine leak that could only be repaired by

tearing the house apart. So we found ourselves at the “Rawlins Chateaux,” an

inexpensive apartment complex a couple streets down from Crossroads Market,

a coffee shop that I had been to once or twice while my father would grade

papers. As I started to pay more attention to the neighborhood, I noticed that two

men could actually publicly display affection. My father explained shortly after

that this was “a gay coffee shop” and that the majority of the customers there

were gay. I met several men in this coffee shop at Crossroads Market in Dallas,

Texas who literally put my life on a new path.

An account from the Native American nation the Montaganais- illustrates

the sense of community that I felt growing up there. According to the account,”

Missionaries tried to tell a man [of this nation] that women should love only their

husbands so that men could be sure of whom their children were; he responded,

“Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children; but we all

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love all the children of our tribe.”1 At Crossroads Market, I was accepted into a

new “tribe.” I would meet the first member of this “people” or “tribe” that would

prove the Indigenous man’s quote about “loving all the children of the tribe” true.

Rick Vanderslice breathes the radio, and radical politics. He used to work

at a Dallas jazz station, 107.5 the Oasis, and when I was twelve, my father

directed me toward him. I can remember one day going up and singing the

slogan “107.5 The Oaaaasis!” to him almost every Tuesday when I walked into

the coffee shop. Rick would patiently laugh it off, hand me a newspaper, either

the New York Times or the Dallas Voice (the local gay paper) and tell me to read

a particular article. One day he gave me his “How to be an intellectual” speech, in

which he said “Be skeptical, but never cynical, and always remember that when

you are fighting for civil rights, its worth it, and you are on the right side of history.

You are religious, and regardless you know that we are not a criminal class, so

tell people. Bigotry comes from ignorance and fear plain and simple.” I took this

speech to heart and kept on coming back to the coffee shop every week to

discuss the latest newspaper articles with Rick, who would sit in the corner and

encourage the group of people that came in to discuss an issue of the day and

create a conversation. Rick has been my main political mentor in many ways. His

patience and insight were the first steps in allowing me at age thirteen to start

believing that I could discuss issues that mattered with anyone as long as what I

said was not reactionary but well reasoned. Rick is radically impatient when it

                                                        
1 From The Meaning of Marxism, D’Mato, Paul, p.29. 2006. Haymarket Books, 

Chicago Illinois, quoting Eleanor Burke Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance (New 
York, Monthly Review Press 1981),35. 

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comes to Gay rights. He believes that he should not have to wait for the rights

that he knows he deserves, and that if the system does not protect his rights,

then the system be damned. Rick has invited me onto several of his podcasts

and his radio show, to encourage me to put “conversational activism” into

practice.

I ran into John Selig while seeing his Sports page lying at the opposite end

of the table from his newspaper. I grabbed it, and he quickly stopped me, getting

“indignant” saying “I think I will now read Sports. I never have, but it’s my paper

thank you.” I learned right away that John was tough as nails, and that he was

different from Rick. John used polemics, instead of pure logic to make his point,

while being an activist for his cause. Although Rick is an activist for gay rights,

John is definitely more “specialized” in that he specializes in gay rights in his

writing. However the most important difference between Rick and John is that

John has a straight son, Nathaniel, who visited the coffee shop once or twice.

John gave me a concrete sense that I was part of the community despite the fact

that I was sure that I was not gay. At the same time as I turned fourteen, fifteen

and sixteen, John would often be protective of me, quickly informing the few

people who once in a while hit on me that “my gay father was over in the back

grading college papers.” He pushed me to go on an AFS foreign exchange, an

organization with which he had volunteered as area rep for North Texas many

years ago, and insisted later that I consider the University of Chicago (I was

rejected). He was formerly married to a woman, like many of his generation, but

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he came out and John and Rodolfo have been married for six and a half years.

Rodolfo must have a calming effect, because John is always more quiet and

calm around him, or at least that is what the coffee shop crowd says. John says

to me “You know me dear I will never change,”, an idea that gives me both a

sense of security and terror.

John has attended every one of my recent birthdays and is always ready

to help me jump on the next opportunity. John’s experience as a gay parent was

invaluable to my father and me, and his stable relationship with Rodolfo was

invaluable in realizing that both gay and straight relationships are valid with

regards to commitment and that love can work or go awry regardless of ones

sexual orientation.

My father is a quiet person, probably due to his Dutch and German

upbringing in rural South Dakota and dad has not been active in Gay politics. So

in 2008 when John asked my father and me to be guests his podcast, saying that

he would submit it to organizations like the Family Equality Council, my father

was hesitant. His gut was telling him that we would regret it later because anyone

with access to Google could find our story. I told him that I had a responsibility to

the gay community and that he should share his story too. I reminded dad that for

the past 5 years I had told all my friends that my father was gay, and that his

experiences as a gay parent would be invaluable for other gays and lesbians

looking to adopt. We joined John on his podcast. The podcast has been as

accessible as dad feared; it has served as a call to those thinking of adopting

children. John has taught me to be bold, to disdain bureaucracy, to respect

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diversity (through his AFS mentorship as well as his activism) and to appreciate

of the fact that everyday stories are the most powerful tools in fighting prejudice

and hate.

Max Westbruck is another person who has changed both my dad’s and

my own view of life. I met Max at the coffee shop when I was about thirteen. I

knew him as “the German postman.” Max has two daughters and an ex-wife with

whom he is on good terms. At about age fifteen or sixteen I started discussing a

school project of mine on Alexander the Great, with Max. He happened to be

Max’s favorite historical hero. As I talked about Alexander, Josephus, and first

century Palestine, Max told me he would like to give me his copy of Oswald

Spengler’s Decline of the West as a gift. Max defies the stereotype that classical

education is only for the elites. More importantly, he has been irreplaceable in all

of my ventures, helping me raise funds for my trip to Argentina, getting me to try

new types of food, and introducing me to German culture. In short, he is an

example that the gay community is not just enriched or bound together just by its

gayness, but by actual people, each bringing their own experience to bear on the

formation of the community. The gay community is made up of real people, not

just stereotypes in a movie.

Max pointed out my deep-seated prejudice against German culture, which

came from my father, who out of uneasiness about the war crimes and horrors of

World War II, had become uncomfortable appreciating his German heritage and

the small German community where he was raised. Through Max dad has

learned to embrace the richer side of his German roots. When I first met Max, I

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was hesitant, because my father told me that Max could be crude in his jokes

and no subject was off limits. Despite this warning I started talking to Max and I

have encountered a different side to him. On one hand there is the man who

says “I can lure a 30 year old man if I spoil him enough,” and the other side, a

Max who with me sticks to Plutarch, Alexander, basketball, polka and politics.

Max has a gift of gathering friends together for monthly meals at the

Bavarian Grill, a German restaurant in Dallas. In fact we have celebrated my last

three birthdays there as well as my farewell party before I left for Argentina in

2009. Max is a contradiction, at once rough and sensitive, vulgar and yet he is

refined, outlandish and parental. Max has an unwavering devotion to those he

cares about and he is deeply concerned about preserving the communal nature

of our Dallas Gay community over a plate of wiener schnitzel.

James Monk (we call him Jimmy) is the resident conservative of our coffee

shop. I first met Jimmy when a lesbian friend of ours, Marlene, who watched me

after school when I was younger, introduced me to him one afternoon at

Crossroads. He said something about Ronald Reagan and I asked him how he

could be conservative and gay. Jimmy said he was economically conservative,

and that is why he voted Republican. John Selig, a non-practicing Jew and

atheist, said, “Log Cabin Republicans are like a PAC called Jews for Hitler.”

Jimmy dismissed that as rhetorical flourish and they got into a big argument

about what it means to be gay. Jimmy argued that to be gay is only one part of

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his identity and he cannot be wholly defined by it. He can compartmentalize it.

On the opposite end of the debate were dear friends Fred and his partner

George, who believed that to say “You are a gay man” means embracing that

identity fully and realizing that it has repercussions for the rest of ones life. Fred

turned to me (as General Pace was speaking in support of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

in 2007 on TV) and said, “You do not know our community. You’re a straight kid.

You cannot understand us.” Fred then repeated that he is “a gay man with every

fiber of who he is.” The comments evoked in me both awe at his convictions, and

sadness at his refusal to acknowledge what I thought to be true, that through my

father, I had been accepted into his community. The Dallas gay community had

left an indelible impression on me through its solidarity and determination to raise

me. I was so saddened that Fred’s comments even caused me to doubt my

assumptions about belonging to the gay community. Was I presumptuous? Was

Fred right? Was my father’s struggle not my own?

Jimmy helped me work through these questions, providing a cool head to

explain that Fred was expressing emotions without putting thought into them.

Jimmy said that I was always welcome, no matter what Fred said out of

frustration without really meaning it.. Indeed, even Fred joked two weeks later

that, “He should have taken his blood pressure medicine that day.” His

comments long forgotten, Fred continues to teach me conviction. He teaches

Identity with a capital I. Jimmy teaches compromise, a big tent, and cool soft-

spokeness, which sometimes, taken too far, can seem like denial or indifference.

Both points of view are fundamental in understanding the community dynamic.

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 Others in the community helped me in small but significant ways. A man

named Luis would pull me aside when my father would scold me for getting too

loud in arguments with Joe Scroggins, a former seminarian. Luis would calm me

down explaining “sometimes ya just have to follow what ya daddy told ya to do

followed by his infectious laugh. These surrogate fathers brought their own

stories, their own history, and their own struggles. They shared their stories and

their lives with me and make me a part of their lives. I will always be grateful for

this, but I still could not personally feel the sacrifice. As an outsider, the gay

struggle did not affect me or involve me personally. Until it did, Fred would be

right. The final key to understanding struggle and healing would come from my

father, who would tell me of his Abrahamic sacrifice that had paved the way for

my adoption.

I have two gay godfathers, Steve and Keith, who are a constant example

of love and fidelity. I also have another gay godfather, Bob. If Steve and Keith

had not been able to take care of me in the event of my father’s death, he would

have done so (and was actually the first to come forward). Bob attended my first

adoption party on January 2, 1998. He joined us on several trips to Florida; he is

a fixture in my childhood memories as “the most understanding man my father

ever knew.” With so many other great role models in my life, I never understood

why dad made this distinction about Bob. Several years ago, I found out. Before I

arrived on the scene, my father had been with Bob for five years in a committed

relationship. Unfortunately Bob had reservations about raising an adopted child

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with my dad, fearing the pressures of me having to deal with the stigma of having

gay parents- so they separated. It was one of the hardest decisions of my

father’s life.

This story gave more poignancy to his assertion, when I would misbehave,

that “You went through a lot, and I will always love you, but I went through a lot to

adopt you too.” When I first found out, I had a hard time understanding why my

godfather would make such a choice. I always thought that I could have handled

having gay parents. This story serves as both a symbol of struggle, through my

father denying his identity and love for another man, because of society’s

prejudice, to adopt me, and affirmation through my father’s love and sacrifice for

me. Bob has moved on (and my father as well) to lead happy and separate lives,

and my godfather grown to embrace his ability to raise children as a gay man.

My father is grateful to see the process of self-acceptance, both in himself

and Bob, which has taken place through the years. Dad finds a happy irony in

this. My father says that Abraham is his role model because “Abraham was told

by the world that he would never have a child, that his chance was gone, that his

wife was barren. I was always told by the world that I could not raise a child, that

I was lacking, that adoption was too hard, that gays cannot raise children, and

that single men cannot raise children. But God said to me and to Abraham that

we would have children, that it is not too late, and that nothing is impossible.”

Dad says his greatest testimony to faith is that he has raised me in a community

so that I would embrace my own identity, whatever that might be gay or straight

or bi. I believe myself to be the straight. However I was always aware of the

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possibility that I could have turned out bisexual or gay and the community would

not have thought any less of me. When my father and I have encountered a gay

professor, gay high school teacher, voice teacher, piano instructor, or a gay

acquaintance on the journey of life, we indentify with them on a fundamental

level, especially if they have children or are a committed couple. They intuitively

identify with dad’s struggle.

This liberation, this affirmation, this freedom to choose, and this feeling of

blessedness, is why I think that dad is right, that I am Abraham’s Child, his

inverse in a way. The child who might never have a true father was paired with

the father who was implicitly told that he would never have a child. Despite all

odds, through his struggle and unconditional yes of semi-blind faith, I am the

child of a man who risked everything so that his son would know a more

accepting world and have other surrogate fathers as numerous as the stars.

©2010 Travis Knoll

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