Dear Melissa:
You know, I liked you–a long time ago. I could listen to Like the Way I Do for hours with a certain somebody in mind. Bastardette won’t go into detail. Mr. Wunnderful is long gone, but not forgotten. It made no difference that you were singing about a woman– which he wasn’t. That song was hot.
But somewhere along the way–I guess when Julie Cypher dropped into your life– you went from rocker to schlocker, and it’s been downhill ever since. (Does anybody but the softball team buy your records anymore?) Your yabber in today’s Music Contact.com announcing that your new twins Johnnie Rose and Miller Steven don’t need to know their genetic heritage really nails the door shut:
We really only need Tammy and me to be parents in this. I feel very confident in us as parents.” Michaels adds, “We are not going to be on the cover of a magazine going, ‘Oh, the donor is George Clooney! We don’t know who the donor is. “We don’t want to know. We’re in a lesbian relationship. It’s two moms, period.”
This is not a gripe about your idyllic lesbian relationship, Melissa. Or your ability to parent. Nobody but wingnuts cares about that. Good for you. You go girlfriend….. But, nobody forced you to out David Crosby on the cover of Rolling Stone. You could have kept quiet. (Trust me, it’s not that difficult to keep personal information to yourself.) Your mouth ran on overdrive. What did you expect would happen?
Now your run in reverse, refusing to tell the world who the twins’s father is (which is the ethical thing to do and what you should have done with the first set of kids), but you’ve fixed it so that the twins themselves will never know who their father is (which is not the ethical thing to do). I hope you and Tammy can afford the therapy bills when they come due. And a lifetime membership in Baster Nation.
Nobody claims that the sperm donor needs to take an active part in your twin’s lives, but those children carry that man’s genes and heritage. I know it’s a stretch to comprehend as you and Tammy loll in your la-la-land of fresh baybeehood, but some day those kids will want to know where half of themselves comes from. They might even need their father if they get sick.
I am sure you are a fine parent, Melissa, but you are not the twins’s father. You two need to get over yourselves! You could have used an identified donor. You could have given those babies the dignity of having an identified father. The identity of their father is their information, and their birthright, not yours. Not Tammy’s. How will you explain to them that you stole it? What will you tell them? It’s all about me?
Your former fan,
Bastardette
PS–George Clooney is happily childfree and intends to stay that way. You give yourself too much credit to think that he would share his sperm with you and Tammy for your noble experiment in fatherlessless genetics.
ARF!
I always figured her for a self absorbed lesbian amoo.
Look how she used her breast cancer to promote herself during her five seconds of fame.
She’s a loser.
Kathy
*anonymous whatever
Get a life let Melissa and Tammy be happy those kids and the two they already have are surrounded by love is`nt that the most important thing not who the father is they have two loving and supportive parents. What a load of b***s** to say she promoted herself when she had breast cancer her talking about it helped many people
Melissa and Tammy are not the first parents (straight or lesbian) to use an anonymous donor and I’m sure they will not be the last. Nobody is telling you how to live your life or bashing you for the personal choices you make about your life. Keep your mean-spirited and small comments to yourself and leave these two people alone to live their life! Everybody makes choices and follows the paths those choices carve out — unfortunately our society forces celebrities to live their lives in the spotlight and subjects them to scrutiny and criticism from every type of outspoken, narrow-minded individual there is. Did you ever consider that maybe what Melissa and Tammy know about their twins and what they are telling the world are two completely different things? Do you believe every piece of trash you read in the tabloids? And do you think, just maybe, it’s nobody’s business anyway?!?!
I know Melissa and Tammy personally, and on their behalf I encourage you: Live and let live!
Signed: A “straight” fan — Never a member of any softball team.
“Melissa and Tammy are not the first parents (straight or lesbian) to use an anonymous donor and I’m sure they will not be the last.”
Anonymous sperm and egg donation, and subsequent conception, is a practice that come under critical scrutiny during the last few years, and was indeed outlawed in Great Britain not too long ago. Why? Because everyone, including people conceived through donated sperm or egg, has a right to their identity,and deserves to know their origins and heritage as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“Nobody is telling you how to live your life or bashing you for the personal choices you make about your life.”
Melissa Etheridge and her partner have publically announced their intention to deny their children conceived by donation the right to know their identity. Personally, I have no problem with gay and lesbian people (singularly or as couples) having and rearing children, it’s none of my business. But if a couple, any couple, straight or gay, announces through the media that they plan on denying their children the right to their identity, then their choice is open to comment.
Anon wrote:
Everybody makes choices and follows the paths those choices carve out — unfortunately our society forces celebrities to live their lives in the spotlight and subjects them to scrutiny and criticism from every type of outspoken, narrow-minded individual there is.
I reply:
Melissa and Tammy have every right to THEIR choices. They made a deliberate choice to bring these twins into the world, and I don’t have a problem with that. That reproductive choice, however does not give them the right to deny to those children the identity of the donor father, no matter how uninvolved he is. By chosing an anon. donor, Melissa and Tammy have negated half of the history, heritage, and identity of the twins. Ask adopted persons who are seeking their own histories and identities how they feel about purposefully hiding the identities of one or both parents how they feel about this negation of their rights.
It’s not like Melissa and Tammy don’t know any better. That Melissa is quoted as bragging about how she and her partner are enough is selfish, and some day will come back to bite. It IS all about them.
And I’d say that to any straight individual or couple, too.
BB Church nailed it.
Marley,
have you a copy of the Uniform Parentage Act? it was circulating around a the state legislatures a few years ago.I think it was written by NCCUSL.
Part of it provided for total anonymity for egg and sperm donors…
I am assuming that the infertility industry lobby was behind that section.It seemed to be promoting the idea that if the “intended parents” use “donors” they should never have to reveal anything…not to the children, nor to anyone else.
I haven’t heard anything about this proposed law recently.