The Peterson-Gray Smith home in Fairfield oozes suburban ordinariness. There's a minivan in the driveway. The front yard is littered with kids' bicycles and plastic hockey sticks.

And while the couple, who have been married for seven years, also have a two-seater Miata sports car, they justify it by saying it offers opportunities for one-on-one talks with their eight-year-old twins, Sadie and Jaxson.

Earlier this month in the U.S., Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum contended that homosexual parents are "robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have a right to."

Children of lesbian parents, he argued, are worse off than those with a father in prison.

In the midst of such denunciations from pulpits and political stumps, gay parents like Rhonda Peterson and Monique Gray Smith quietly go about raising their kids.

If there is anything noteworthy about their family, it's how little attention their lesbian relationship attracts.

Their kids' friends don't remark on the two-mother family. Their neighbours don't care. And no special talks with teachers or school principals have ever been necessary to pave the way for their kids.

Last year, there were three other children of same-sex parents in the twins' class at Margaret Jenkins Elementary.

"Our school doesn't even have 'mother' and 'father' on the forms," said Gray Smith, 42, owner of an aboriginal consulting firm. "It has 'parent, parent.' "

Peterson, a 45-year-old social worker, said the couple's sexuality has never arisen as an issue except when they travel to the U.S., where it makes customs officials nervous, slowing down the border-crossing process.

"We don't hide [our sexuality] and we don't promote it either," she said.

"When you get to know us, it's pretty obvious that we are a couple, but we don't introduce ourselves as 'Monique and Rhonda, the gay couple.' "

It wasn't always this way for gay parents. For years prior to the 2003 legalization of same-sex marriage in B.C. — and the 2005 Parliamentary vote that allowed it across Canada — gay parents frequently lived in fear and in the closet.

Linda, 62, mother of a now-30-year-old son, kept her sexuality secret all during her son's childhood for fear child-welfare officials might seize him.

She now works for Victoria Pride, but still asks that her last name not be published for fear of upsetting her elderly mother.

She didn't even come out to her son until he was in his 20s.

"He didn't need it in his life," she said.

Academic studies continue to be released showing little difference between the emotional and psychological health of children of gay or lesbian parents and those of their heterosexual counterparts.

The latest major study, released early last month in the Journal of Development and Pediatrics, compared responses of 78 teens raised by lesbian mothers with teens from heterosexual families.

Scores were virtually the same for both groups, who were asked to agree or disagree with statements like "I am getting along with my parents/guardians," or "I look forward to the future."

"Adolescents living with lesbian parents function as well as, or sometimes better than, those reared by opposite-sex parents," wrote the study's authors, led by Loes van Gelderen of the University of Amsterdam.

In 2007, a review of scientific literature by the Australian Psychological Society, citing more than 200 sources, also found little difference between the two groups of children.

"Research indicates that parenting practices and children's outcomes in families parented by lesbian and gay parents are likely to be at least as favourable as those in families of heterosexual parents," concluded the Australian report.

Steve Garlick, associate professor of sociology at the University of Victoria with a special interest in gender and sexuality, said studies have been around for years showing children of homosexual parents are doing just fine.

Garlick, however, is not surprised by the continuing controversy in places like the U.S.

He said at the heart of many objections to gay or lesbian parenting is the notion that children require a role model for each gender.

"Ideas about gender and sexuality are very much intertwined," said Garlick. "This is all part of broader social changes that are producing more fluid, more insecure social lives for many people.

"It is understandable that gay and lesbian parenting can evoke some fear and anxieties."

But, Garlick asks, "Why is there so much focus on difference here?

"It's necessary to question the assumption that there is something essentially different about gay and lesbian people."

Back in Fairfield at the Peterson-Gray Smith home, the two parents are wrestling with their own, most recent home controversy.

"The greatest debate we have right now is 'allowance' or 'no allowance?'" said Gray Smith. "Do we or don't we? That's the discussion: 'What are family responsibilities that maintain us as a household and what are the privileges?'

"Now, is that not a common parenting discussion?"

rwatts@timescolonist.com