Arts & Entertainment

Watch: gay dads criticized for raising a child on ‘What Would You Do?’

The social experiment was conducted in Kentucky and New York

Published

8 years ago

August 27, 2018

Mariah Cooper

(Screenshot via YouTube)

Unsuspecting diners had their views on gay adoption and foster care tested in a new segment on “What Would You Do?”

The scenario was inspired by the statistic that same-sex couples in the U.S. are raising almost 60,000 adopted and foster children. Married same-sex couples have opened their homes to 26,000 of those children.

On this episode of the hidden camera show, actors portrayed a gay couple raising an adopted daughter. While out at a restaurant, the couple is verbally harassed by a woman who believes the child shouldn’t be raised without a mother. The social experiment was conducted in both Orangetown, New York and Bardstown, Kentucky to compare how location affected people’s reactions.

In Kentucky, the harasser makes comments such as “I don’t think a child should be raised that way” and “That’s an innocent child with two gay men raising her.”

One man jumps up from the table saying “Lady, are you nuts or something? This lady is annoying me, probably these other people. We need it stop. We didn’t come here to be annoyed by you.”

A woman responds to the harasser by saying “I’m a teacher. I see it all the time and the children do not have problems.”

Some diners did note that while they disagree with the couple’s lifestyle they thought it was wrong of the woman to harass them in public.

In New York, customers were also supportive of the family.

“You need to lighten up lady,” one customer tells the harasser.“You need to back off. You’ve got two people celebrating and demonstrating love for a child. You’ve got some nerve. It doesn’t matter. Love is love. Would you rather see that child homeless, starving to death? It’s not about your opinion. It’s about the welfare of a child, a human being. The problem in the world is not two men raising a child. The problem in the world is you making comments like that.”

Watch below.

Related Topics:gay adoption What Would You Do?

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Books

New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex

‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more

Published

10 hours ago

July 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy W.W. Norton)

‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages

Birds do it.

According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.

If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.

Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”

That might be because animals are not simply binary.

Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.

Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.

The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.

So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”

Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.

Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.

There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.

So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.

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