COLUMN ONE : 2 Moms or 2 Dads--and a Baby : Gay parents give birth to families of their own, thanks to such methods as artificial insemination and adoption. It’s the ‘gayby’ boom, which could help society accept homosexuals.

To look at her, Alanna Gabrielle Handler seems an altogether conventional baby. Just 14 weeks old, she scrunches her tiny face and inspires the usual oohs and ahhs. The nursery in her family’s Van Nuys apartment is pastel and girlish and graced with a banner proclaiming, “Welcome Alanna--Grandma and Grandpa.”

But Alanna is not a typical infant. She was not conceived the traditional way and her parents are not a conventional couple--or should we say trio? No, Alanna is different. She is a tribute to lesbian romance and a product of artificial insemination, a baby whose very existence challenges traditional views of nature and family.

And for the gay rights movement, she is a tiny bundle of hope.

Little Alanna was born into the brave new world of “gay families.” The notion of gays bringing up children may seem contradictory to those who assume that homosexuals are not inclined to propagate; it may alarm and disturb people who disapprove of gays as role models. But thousands of gays and lesbians are doing just that.

Children are added to gay households in a variety of ways: by winning custody of offspring in the dissolution of heterosexual marriages, by adoption, by alternative means of conception. Experts suggest that Alanna is one of hundreds of babies, probably thousands, born to lesbians nationwide in recent years via artificial insemination--in some cases with sperm donated by gay men. A small number of gay men, meanwhile, have enlisted surrogates to help them fulfill paternal desires. The “gayby boom,” some activists call it.

These parents have, in effect, rejected stereotypes held both outside and inside the gay community about what it means to be homosexual. At a time when the gay rights movement has been radicalized by the AIDS epidemic and such controversies as Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto of gay rights legislation, some activists believe such families may do more to alter society’s attitudes about homosexuals than any protest march, lawsuit or legislation.

Such change, activists predict, would be evolutionary and incremental--but could ultimately lead to legal recognition of gay marriage. Gay rights proponents, still battling for such fundamental civil rights as job and housing protection, predict that redefining laws governing an institution as sacred as the family will prove their most difficult challenge.

Surveys suggest that a large majority of the American public, although generally favoring anti-discrimination laws, is uncomfortable with gays as parents. A 1989 Time Magazine-CNN poll, for example, showed that 17% say that gay couples should be legally permitted to adopt children, with 75% opposing and 8% uncertain.

Such attitudes are distressing to gay parents. “I would like the day to come when there’s nothing to talk about, period,” said Jeff Carron of Hollywood, the adoptive father of 5-year-old Jenny. “Whether I’m married to Susan or Steve, big deal. Am I nice? Am I good? Am I a loving parent? That’s the important thing.”

Courts have increasingly agreed with Carron’s view. Judges, persuaded by growing research data that gays are as able as heterosexuals to be worthy parents, have increasingly granted gays custody of children and approved adoptions by gays. Meanwhile, alternative means of conception have brought more babies--and more gay parents--into the world.

The number of gays bringing up children is difficult to quantify because many people remain closeted, fearful that they will lose their children, said Don Harrelson of the Gay and Lesbian Parents of Los Angeles. This is especially true outside cosmopolitan gay centers such as San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, suggests Harrelson, the adoptive father of two sons.

In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, there are 5,000 gay households with children, according to the “educated guess” of Cynthia Underhill, director of the lesbian and gay parenting program at Lyon-Martin Women’s Health Services in San Francisco. The program’s mailing list numbers 2,000.

Medical professionals, meanwhile, can easily document hundreds of cases in the last decade in which lesbians have conceived via artificial insemination. Records at the Oakland-based Sperm Bank of California show that of the 405 women who conceived there from 1982 to June, 1991, 208 identified themselves as lesbian, said executive director Barbara Raboy. Suzanne Gage, director of the artificial insemination program at Wholistic Health Care in West Hollywood, says more than 100 women who identified themselves as lesbian have conceived there over the last five years.

These two programs “are probably the tip of the iceberg,” Raboy said, noting that substantial numbers of lesbians have conceived through artificial insemination programs at women’s clinics in New York, Boston and Washington and in smaller numbers in clinics elsewhere. Raboy and other experts suggest that these numbers are equaled, if not surpassed, by those who do artificial insemination with assistance from a private physician or who do it themselves.

Alanna Handler was a do-it-yourselfer. Helene Handler was inseminated by her companion, Celia Noriega, in their bedroom using a syringe with a tube attached. The semen was donated by a friend.

Another homemade artificial insemination baby is year-old Lennon Marley Gunter, the pride and joy of biological mother Nadja Judin and “co-parent” Renee Gunter, as well as Jim Olarte, Lennon’s biological father, and his longtime companion, Larry Craig.

The infant is named for musical artists John Lennon and Bob Marley--not just for their music, Judin explained, but “because they were social revolutionaries.” Lennon lives with Judin and Gunter in their Studio City home. Olarte and Craig, who live in Laguna Beach, visit frequently.

Judin--now in the process of changing her name to Judin-Gunter--said it was important to find a donor who wanted to play an active role in their child’s life.

“When he’s older, he’ll spend some weekends with his daddy. He’ll know that Jim is his daddy. But he has two mamas too,” Judin said.

Olarte said he envisions himself taking Lennon to the beach and the mountains, teaching him to surf and ski.

Many lesbians seeking to become pregnant are wary of gay donors because of the prevalence of the AIDS virus among gay men. A wrong decision could infect both mother and baby with potentially lethal results. Judin placed her trust in a battery of tests that showed that Olarte was free of the virus, as well as assurances that he and Craig have been in a monogamous relationship for 11 years.

Now the couples are discussing the possibility of a second child--only this time Gunter and Craig would be the biological parents.

Many gays see the “gayby boom” as part of the maturation process for a community that used to jokingly refer to heterosexuals as “breeders.”

“I think maybe 20 years ago, gays and lesbians were in many ways fighting their own homophobia, and their own feelings of where self-worth was coming from,” said Roberta Bennett, a 48-year-old lesbian mother and an attorney who specializes in adoptions. “Times have certainly changed. I think politically and emotionally, the gay and lesbian community as a whole feels they’re just like everybody else--and that they can raise a child just as well, if not better, than anybody else.”

Bennett and her companion of 18 years have brought up five children--two each from prior heterosexual unions, and now a grandchild. She sees a spiritual link between AIDS and the gay-family phenomenon. Amid so much tragedy, Bennett asks, what is more emotionally enriching and life-affirming than bringing up children?

Many gay parents say having children simply represents a personal quest.

“Being gay has nothing to do with your desire or need to raise children,” said a would-be father who is a member of Gay and Lesbian Parents of Los Angeles. “Heterosexuals have such an easy time having children they sometimes don’t appreciate what a gift it is.”

This man, who asked to be identified only as “Ralph,” is among a handful of gay men seeking to father children with the aid of a surrogate. He plans to have two; the process costs about $35,000 for each child.

“Many gays don’t understand it,” he added. “They think you want to have children because you’re trying to pass as a heterosexual. That’s not what it is. You want to be a parent because you want to know what it’s like. You want to change diapers. You want all of that experience.”

Having children, Ralph says, is “the ultimate liberation of a gay person.”

Gay parents see political implications in small and large ways. On personal levels, many speak of how children have brought greater acceptance from relatives, neighbors and people they meet at the PTA and Little League.

Parents, regardless of their sexual orientation, are able to relate to each other, said Diane Goodman, a lesbian attorney and adoptive mother of a toddler son. “It’s waking up five times a night; it’s ‘I’m thirsty, I need to go to the bathroom’--it’s all the same stuff,” she said. “It’s like the lesbian title is gone--because I’m a mother.”

Alanna Handler’s arrival, her mother Helene says, has softened her own family’s attitude. Her parents and grandparents stood opposite her and Noriega during a recent Jewish naming ritual--”and the rabbi very much included Celia.”

Winning society’s trust is something else. To change family laws, gays would have to do much more than overcome opposition from people who see them as sinners. Many others grow squeamish at the notion of gays and children in close company.

“Any time you’re dealing with children, it brings out the most primitive kind of reaction to lesbians and gay men,” said Jon W. Davidson, a gay lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. “People raise concerns about molestation and role modeling. And will children turn out to be lesbian and gay?”

Gay parents and lawyers who represent them say such fears reflect erroneous stereotypes. Their contentions are supported by psychiatric research, said Dr. Martha J. Kirkpatrick, a professor at the UCLA School of Medicine.

“Whatever goes on in a family has an effect on the child. But we cannot find, by the current measures available, that any evidence of homosexuality in a parent has a specific detrimental effect,” said Kirkpatrick, who has studied children brought up by lesbians.

Moreover, researchers have not found any more or less of a tendency in children brought up by gays and lesbians to be homosexual themselves, Kirkpatrick said.

The most intriguing--but by no means decisive--recent research seeking an explanation for sexual orientation found a biological difference in the size of a tiny piece of a segment of the brain--the hypothalamus. The findings, announced Aug. 29 by neurobiologist Simon LeVay of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, did not address speculation concerning possible genetic links.

Some gays wryly point out that, as far as they know, their own parents were heterosexual. But they, too, wonder if homosexuality is a matter of nature, nurture or both. Many gay mothers and fathers--no doubt like their parents before them--worry whether their own children might be homosexual.

“I was born this way,” asserted Bruce Zisterer of Altadena, recently granted joint custody of his 10-year-old son, Joel, after the dissolution of a 15-year marriage. “I believe it’s an innate thing you’re born with.

“Now, if I had my say, I would hope my son grows up straight. . . . He would not have to go through the emotional pain I have gone through.”

Although more openly gay people are bringing up more children than ever before, gays say it is absurd to think of homosexuals having children as some apocalyptic turn of events. “As long as there have been lesbians and gays, there have been lesbian mothers and gay fathers,” said Roberta Achtenburg, the former executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and now a member of the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors.

Parental rights have been a key issue since the gay liberation movement started in the late 1960s. California law since 1967 has held that a parent cannot be denied custody of a child solely on the grounds of homosexuality. But as more gays and lesbians came out of the closet, their lawyers discovered that such disclosures greatly jeopardized their standing in custody battles.

The courts gradually became more tolerant. A key reason, some suggest, was the American Psychiatric Assn.’s decision in 1973 removing homosexuality from its diagnostic manual of disease categories. When San Francisco’s Lesbian Rights Project was founded in 1977, “the primary emphasis of the legal work was in the defense of mothers, because the kids were being taken away from them for no good reason,” Achtenburg said.

In more recent years, studies such as Kirkpatrick’s have made the homosexuality of a parent less of an issue in custody disputes. But Kirkpatrick says that more long-term studies are needed to better understand the dynamics of “gay families” and their influence on children.

Domestic scenes in gay households rattle classic notions of the nuclear family.

Zisterer, who lives with companion Nick Paul, decided that he had to “come out” to his son more than a year ago during a contentious custody battle. His former wife, Zisterer said, “tried to make an issue of homosexuality. . . . It didn’t work.”

He gave Joel a reading lesson with a primer called “Daddy’s Roommate,” trying to explain his relationship with his live-in companion, Nick Paul.

Joel showed the book to a visitor, matter-of-factly reading how the two men “live together, work together, eat together, sleep together, shave together.” Being gay, the book explains, “is just one more kind of love. And love is the best kind of happiness.”

Younger children, gay parents say, tend to take news of a parents’ homosexuality in stride. But the arrival of adolescence makes a parent’s sexual orientation more of an issue.

Thirteen-year-old Alice--not her real name--said she has confided in only a few friends that her father is gay. One, she said, responded by revealing that her aunt is a lesbian.

But Alice said she still hasn’t told “my very, very best friend in the whole world.”

One day, Alice explained, her friend asked her if she was prejudiced against any group. “I said, ‘Not really. Just ignorant people, I guess.’ Then she said she was just prejudiced against gay people. . . . I didn’t say anything.”

Zisterer and other gay parents say it is important to convey to their children that homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of. Zisterer said his unorthodox household has encountered largely accepting attitudes at church, the PTA and among neighbors whose children play with Joel.

“Nick,” he added, “is an excellent co-parent.”

“Co-parent” is the term many gay fathers and lesbian mothers use to describe their domestic partners. But the term is meaningless in the eyes of the law.

Attorneys who have tried to explain the new realities of gay families to the courts say laws need to be revised to offer protection for children and adults. The Los Angeles Gay Bar Assn. last April invited family law judges to a dinner to discuss gay households.

“Judges need to look at the other adults in the household as they would a stepparent,” Goodman said. Sanctioning gay marriages, lawyers say, wouldn’t by itself resolve the complexities of gay family life.

Consider the case of Alanna Handler. If Helene Handler had been artificially inseminated under a doctor’s supervision, the sperm donor would have no legal rights or responsibilities under existing California law.

But because Celia inseminated Helene at home, the friend who donated the sperm is legally the child’s father--regardless of whether he wants such responsibility. Handler and Noriega say they were unaware of the legal intricacies when Alanna was conceived a year ago.

To lawyer Bennett, “the whole thing is ludicrous. . . . You have a situation where a woman is artificially inseminated in a doctor’s office. There is no legal father.”

Now, she said, let’s talk about using a syringe at home for artificial inseminations. “All of a sudden, the father has rights. . . . Now, this doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever.”

Nor does it make sense to Handler and Noriega.

In some instances, “co-parents” may attain parental status by legally adopting the child. But Alanna’s biological father would complicate any attempt by Noriega to adopt Alanna. Helene Handler said that, to protect both her companion and her daughter, she intends to draw up a will naming Noriega as Alanna’s guardian if she dies.

But what if Handler and Noriega split up? In two recent ground-breaking custody battles between lesbians, the court sided with the biological mother. Activists view the decisions as setbacks for the gay rights movement.

Both the child and society would benefit, Goodman argues, if “co-parents” are granted greater rights.

The same arguments, she said, should prevail in adoption cases--but don’t.

Counties with more liberal policies, including Los Angeles, grant adoptions to openly gay individuals. Los Angeles authorities, Bennett said, are “just wonderful” in recognizing the rights of gays as adoptive parents. Even so, many gays still don’t disclose their sexual orientation because of “the unfounded fear they will not be able to get a baby.”

But only in San Francisco and Alameda counties--and only in a small number of cases--have gay and lesbian couples been granted joint custody in adoptions. Bennett and other lawyers have tried to persuade judges in Los Angeles and elsewhere to approve such adoptions. The hang-up, as Bennett sees it, is technical: Family law courts aren’t leery of gay couples because they are gay, but because they are unmarried.

So many gays go the route of independent adoptions. Some get children from foreign lands.

Jeff Carron arranged to adopt Jenny, now 5, before her birth here in the United States. When Jenny was 6 months old, he won a custody battle after her parents abruptly challenged the adoption.

Adopting Jenny, Carron explained, enabled him to continue “the tradition my family handed down to me. . . . I came from a wonderful family. My whole life was family, and my parents were very supportive.” Bringing up Jenny “is the greatest achievement of my life . . . a wonderful, wonderful experience.”

Lennon Gunter’s parents say much the same thing.

Renee Gunter likes to talk about the day Lennon was born at Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center. Jim Olarte and Larry Craig paced nervously in the waiting room. Rene was at Nadja’s side through the delivery.

Rene later carried the newborn out of the delivery room cooing, “This is my boy. This is my boy.”

Two nurses gave her a startled look, perhaps wondering why this new mother wasn’t lying down. Then one nurse remembered: “Oh, you’re the, uh, co-parent, right?” The other nurse muttered something and walked away.

Later that day, another woman came into the hospital. After giving birth to a son, she rose from bed, walked out of the hospital without her baby and disappeared into a waiting car.

Lennon slept in the nursery, content as could be, Gunter recalled. The abandoned baby lay nearby, bawling.

And both nurses agreed that three parents might not such a bad thing after all.