'Yes?' I'll say, 'No, other mother.' "

Dealing with teasing from classmates and the community isn't so easy, same-sex children say. It's not unusual to hear children of same-sex couples say that they were teased by classmates, but some of that may depend on their age and where they grew up.

DeGroot, for example grew up in Corvallis, Oregon. The city is in a college town and in a liberal state. DeGroot's age may help, too. He didn't grow up in the 1970s, but came of age recently when gay couples were generally more accepted.

DeGroot's biological mother, Elisabeth, says her community didn't criticize her or her partner for raising their son. Some of her son's friends actually thought their son was cool for having two lesbian moms, she says.

"It wasif they do.

According to the American Psychological Association, numerous research shows that most kids of same-sex households describe themselves as heterosexual in roughly the same proportion as conventional families. The association also says that homosexuality is not deviant behavior but a normal expression of human sexuality.

The APA also concludes that gay parents are just as capable as straight parents, and that laws barring same-sex couples from adopting have no scientific basis.

Those laws, however, do exist. At least six states have explicit restrictions on adoptions by gays and lesbians: Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, Utah, Nebraska and Michigan, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

The laws may have been passed to protect the family, but allowing gay people to marry could actually strengthen the family, says Jesse Levey, the