Fitness guru Shaun T and husband Scott Blokker became the first same-sex couple featured on Parents magazine this month, a milestone that left conservative group One Million Moms outraged.
The group launched a petition, now signed by 10,763 people who are “disappointed that Parents would use their magazine to promote same-sex parenting.”
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“Parents is using its magazine as a platform to promote the pro-homosexual lifestyle,” the One Million Moms statement reads. “Even if families do not personally subscribe to the publication, they should be warned that it could be displayed in waiting rooms of dentist and doctor offices, where children could easily be subjected to the glorification of same-sex parents.”
The group added, “Mothers and fathers are seeing more and more similar examples of children being indoctrinated to perceive same-sex couples as normal, especially in the media. Likewise, the magazine’s website, Parents.com, and their other social media pages also push pro-homosexual content.”
The cover features Shaun T and Blokker with their 13-month-old twin sons Sander Vaughn and Silas Rhys, who were born prematurely at 32 weeks, reports PEOPLE. In Parents, the couple discussed how their relationship and lives have changed in their first year as parents.
“It was terrible,” Shaun T jokingly told the magazine. “We got into more fights than we’d ever had in our entire relationship.”
“I even questioned whether we’d ruined our marriage by having kids, but it wasn’t the kids,” Blokker added. “It was the not sleeping!”
Shaun T also shared the two pieces of advice he received from his grandfather and Blokker’s father.
“Scott’s dad told me, ‘You’re not coming into the babies’ world. They’re coming into yours,’ and that made me eager to show them the life we live,” Shaun T recalled. “The second was from my grandfather, who was married to my grandmother for 56 years… He said, ‘Never go to bed angry,’ and we don’t. The connectedness you feel at the end of the day is the driving force for how you wake up the next day, so every night we fall asleep holding hands.”
Having their children in the first place was not easy. The couple told Parents they had 12 attempts, six egg donors, five surrogates, two doctors and one miscarriage. Finally, after spending thousands of dollars, they welcomed Sander and Silas. The two have the same egg donor, but Silas is from Blokker’s sperm and Saner is from Shaun T’s sperm. They were born two minutes apart.
One Million Moms has a long history of criticizing any LGBTQ-inclusive media. Its parent company, the American Family Association, was classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Photo credit: Parents Magazine