8 Quotes About LGBTQ Families

It's been a year since same-sex marriage was legalized last June, and the intervening time has been something of a mixed bag. For every step forward, it seems like LGBTQ rights shuffled sideways and took one step straight into the air (looking at you, bathroom bills). It's enough to make you desperate for something lighthearted — like, say, quotes about LGBTQ families to give you the warm fuzzies.

Fortunately, that's easy enough to provide; although the road to true equality still stretches ahead, the LGBTQ community is currently experiencing historic levels of acceptance in American society. Less than a decade ago, even liberal politicians hedged the question of whether same-sex marriage deserved legalization; in 2008, Proposition 8 eliminated the right in one of the country’s most liberal states, California, partly by playing on fears of how same-sex couples would affect children. (This was dismantled five years later when the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.) Today, however, attitudes toward LGBTQ families in many communities are beginning to change for the better.

There are still bigots doing their bigoted thing, as always, but it's important to acknowledge progress as well, or else we'd all be too depressed to get anything done. With that in mind, let's take a look at eight quotes about LGTQ families that prove that love is love, and family is family.

1. "Every day they teach me different things. The love is there. When you have a 2-year-old saying every other hour, 'Papi, te amo. Papi, I love you,' it can't get better."

— Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican musician

2. "Why can't two loving adults who have contemplated parenthood and are prepared to offer love, patience, and devotion come up with enough chromosomal matter to stick together and create a child?"

— Scott Simon, American journalist

3. "Well, you know, when it’s two blokes with kids, you aren’t sure who’s called what, so rather than Daddy 1 and Daddy 2 like some Doctor Seuss book, it seems better that he’s daddy and I’m poppa."

— Neil Patrick Harris, American actor

4. "I think every child deserves a family as loving and committed as mine. Because the sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us; that’s what makes a family. ... My family is just as real as yours."

— Zach Wahls, activist and son of a same-sex couple

5. "There are some 40,000 children in California…that live with same-sex parents. They want their parents to have full recognition and full status. The voice of these children is important, don’t you think?"

— Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, referring to California's 2008 same sex marriage ban Proposition 8

6. "Growing up with lesbian moms has been the most normal thing to ever happen to me, honestly. It’s so brutally normal! ... I was raised like any other kid: always say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ don’t put your elbows on the table, and don’t litter!"

— Katie Hershey van Horn, daughter of a same-sex couple, to the Huffington Post in 2014

7. "I am who I am because of the people who influenced me growing up, and many of them were gay. No one has any right to tell anyone what makes a family."

— Drew Barrymore, American actress

8. "When my brother came out of the closet, it wasn’t a big deal for my family. Even my grandpa, who is... super old-school, was like, 'Good for you!'"

— Ariana Grande, American singer and actress