Is it really homophobic to ask whether two men can make a baby? | 18 February 2018

When I saw the photo of Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black holding a photo of an ultrasound, and all the subsequent headlines proclaiming ‘Tom and Lance are having a baby’ I thought one thing above all: ‘That’s strange’. Not ‘eww’, or ‘gross’, or ‘what a way to get over certain negative recent publicity’, but just ‘That’s strange’. Strange that we should have reached the point (inevitable in a way) in which two men announce that they’re having a baby and everyone is meant to just say ‘yay’ and not ask any more questions. ‘Of course two men can have a baby’, we are meant to chant in chorus, before turning on anyone who is silent and adding, ‘And why don’t you agree, bigot?’

I would bet that the majority of the population had the same reaction as me. Most people, other than a certain portion of millennials, are aware of the facts of child-birth. They know that (as the old joke goes) gays may not be able to make babies, but it doesn’t mean we can’t keep trying. There remain certain pre-requisites for childbirth, even now. And one of them is the presence, at some stage at least, of a woman. This is not to make any value judgement, but simply to observe that whatever the rights and wrongs, two men still need a little help if they are going to be with child.

Yet such is the stupid censoriousness of our times that nobody appears to want to even utter the questions which would be on any even half-sentient person’s mind when reading the pregnancy story. We are all meant to just accept the harmless little lie and move along.