I don’t know if there are any man-folk out there reading this, but if you want to donate sperm to a lesbian couple, I think that’s really super double great. It’s particularly great if you’re donating out of support for the couple and if you and the couple have the same ideas about child involvement. Still, there are a few simple conditions you should meet:
+You should not have a problem with lesbians/gays raising kids/gay marriage
+You should inform your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/partner
This guy, Bill Johnson, missed the memo:
Johnson, a Republican who ran for Alabama governor in 2009 and is the former director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, has been secretly donating sperm to women in New Zealand. Johnson has been living alone in Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand doing relief work since an earthquake in February. The New Zealand Herald received an anonymous tip that Johnson had, unbeknownst to his wife, donated sperm to at least six women, and begun talks with three more.
Johnson has not been donating within New Zealand’s regulated fertility clinics (perhaps because he is 52, above the age maximum), but instead meeting women online using the username “chchbill.” Though Johnson has discussed sperm donation with at least nine women, fertility clinics in New Zealand regulate donations to no more than five families. They recommend donation to no more than four. When asked about the donations, Johnson said that, though his wife had a hysterectomy, being a biological father was “a need that I have.”
Every person who is a father and a mother knows why I am doing this. If life’s circumstances had dealt me a different hand I wouldn’t be doing this. It is not the hand that life has dealt my wife…Reproduction and having children is as basic a human need as eating.
Johnson’s wife, Kathy, was a two-time Mrs. America finalist and is the mother of three children from a previous relationship. When she heard of the news, Kathy said that Johnson was “filled with love and laughter and desire to give to others.” She went on to tell reporters, “All of that is stripped away today. I feel silent and empty.”
Similarly, Johnson kept his life in America private from the women he donated to. He didn’t wear his wedding ring and told the women that his relationship status was “not an issue.” Though Johnson campaigned on a platform against gay rights in Alabama, at least one of the women pregnant by his sperm is a lesbian in a committed relationship. When the New Zealand Herald told her of Johnson’s past campaigning against same-sex marriage, she laughed and said, “We found Bill to be really nice. He’s a really supportive guy.” Though this implies that the woman’s partner had met Johnson, he maintains that he did not know the “relationship status” of any of the women. “I just know they want to have children,” he said. Johnson refused to answer any further questions regarding the sexual orientation or relationship status of the women who he donated to.
So, is this a guy with a God complex who thinks he needs to spread his seed across the holy land (the holy land of New Zealand?) or just another Republican whose behavior and personal life is inconsistent with his own values? I find it hard to believe Johnson could truly ideologically oppose gay rights if he thinks it’s fine for lesbian couples to raise children. Perhaps Johnson has some delusional idea that these women will let him father their children as they grow up. Johnson told the Herald, “I’ll be just as much a parent to them as [the mothers] want me to be, as I am to my own children.” Still I’m having a hard time blaming Johnson. I wonder if maybe his willingness to donate sperm to a lesbian couple isn’t a sign of previous political-personal inconsistency or even a desire to raise the child himself. Maybe instead, through his own desire for children, Johnson is now able to realize that gay couples don’t want children to support a gay brainwashing agenda, but to have loving, happy families.
