With Prop 8 happenings back in everyone’s newsfeed, that age-old, anti-equality argument “What about the kids?!” is also back on the mainstage.
It’s an important question, to be sure, but the fact of the matter is, kids being brought up in a “non-traditional household” is hardly new territory.
In fact, here to assuage the homophobes’ fears are some of the very best of fictional families headed by “non-traditional” parents:
1. Dawn — Buffy the Vampire Slayer
When big sis’ Buffy was busy being dead, Dawn Summers was left in the care of everyone’s favorite lesbian witch couple: Willow and Tara. The pair moved into the Summers house, took over the master bedroom, and provided Dawn with all the support and misshapen pancakes any orphaned kid could ask for.
2. Simba — The Lion King
While Timon and Pumbaa probably wouldn’t survive the very strict judgment of most adoption agencies, the pair took it upon themselves to help the young lion prince cope with his severe emotional issues by teaching him how to abide by Hakuna Matata.
3. Rachel Berry — Glee
The two people responsible for Rachel Barry’s unfailing zeal and ambition are none other than the up-and-coming Broadway star’s two gay dads. So involved are they that the pair do their own song and dance numbers to support her. They don’t need an unlikely crew of high school outcasts to back them up — just the love in their hearts.
4. The Beast — Beauty and the Beast
Lumiere the candlestick and Cogsworth the clock pretty much represent the bad cop/good cop element in dual-parenting. Sure Mrs. Potts chimed in every now and again as a mother figure, but at the end of the day it was always bad-candlestick Lumiere and If It’s Not Baroque, Don’t Fix It Cogsworth doing their best to help the Beast see the light.
5. Mary Bennington — 3 Men and a Little Lady
Three best dude friends take on the challenge of raising a little girl on their own. Regardless of how much testosterone that goes into her upbringing, little Mary manages to grow up to the tender age of four with zero psychological or emotional issues.
6. Quazimodo — The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Those three gargoyles who were the hunchback’s only company collectively provided the Good Cop foil to that creepy purple guy’s Evil Cop. Their love for Quazi was solid as stone, and even though their hugs were hardly warm and tender, their nonstop encouragement and posse-like gang-fighting methods were nothing short of parental.
7. Lady — Lady and the Tramp
Granted, you could very well argue that Lady’s pet-parents were her parental figures; however, as they didn’t speak her language, Jock and Joe, her neighbors, filled in where the humans could not.
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Whoa, Disney. Who’da thunk you’d be all up in the non-traditional family movement? You go, Disney. You go.
Friends, who do you think deserves to make it on the list?
