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Seven years ago, before reality shows like "Newlyweds" and "Nip/Tuck" made intimate details about ordinary people's lives available to the general public, documentarian Murray Nossel began gathering some remarkable footage from the lives of a gay male couple who were trying to have a baby.

That footage has become a film, "Paternal Instinct". It's noteworthy not only for the level of intimacy (the viewer is privy to the surrogate mother's insemination and the baby's birth) but also because it avoids the familiar debates about the morality and challenges of gay parenthood.

But who got to give the sperm?

Gay dad Mark told us: "it was a negotiated process. Because I felt that [my partner] Erik was going to be much more tied into the parenting relationship. So I didn't want to be left out in the cold. So Erik said, OK, you can have the first child be yours, and the second child will be mine."

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feedback (via email):

If the liberals do not win, it is because we somehow feel the need to carry this baggage (eg, surrogate witch mothers handing over their child to a couple of gay guys), which the majority will never accept.
-JM

Why does this guy refer to his kid as his "biological" child and as the mother as a "surrogate"? She's the mother's child as well. She just surrendered her. Just wondering.
-EC

It is easier for gay people to have biological children. It is very difficult for gay men to adopt. Adoption is difficult for all people, by the way.
-G