For One Anti-Gay Woman, 30 Days Is Not Time Enough

We’ve seen it a dozen times before on scripted television: an intolerant conservative, often a devout Christian, expresses anti-gay views at the beginning of the episode, but then encounters an actual gay person or couple, only to rethink their homophobic attitudes by the end of the show. Whether it’s recently on Grey’s Anatomy or years ago on Touched By An Angel, the cold, anti-gay heart always melts in the warm, friendly glow of an interaction with an actual, humanizing gay person.

But (mild spoiler alert) that’s not what happens on Tuesday night's episode of the FX reality series 30 Days. And, paradoxically, this “unresolved” ending makes for absolutely riveting television.

Kati (left), a devout Christian with anti-gay views
spends a month with the Patrick family on 30 Days
Photo credit: FX

30 Days was created and is hosted by Morgan Spurlock, who, in his 2004 documentary Super Size Me, ate nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days. In his TV series, which is currently in its third season, participants are asked to spend thirty days living in a situation that they’re unfamiliar with. Most of the time, the subject of the episode finds long-held assumptions challenged and ends up rethinking deeply held beliefs.

But on tonight’s episode, Kati, a devoutly Christian mother of two adopted sons, goes to spend 30 days with Tom and Dennis Patrick (who share a last name), a same-sex couple in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who are raising four adopted sons of their own.

Photo credit: Paul Warner/FOX

Kati seems perfectly nice, well intentioned and thoughtful. Dennis and Tom are clearly outstanding, loving parents. At one point, we learn that if Dennis and Tom had not adopted their children, they might very well still be languishing in foster care, as would many other local children who have been adopted by same-sex couples.

But none of this matters to Kati. By the end of the thirty days in which she lives with Dennis, Tom, and their kids, Kati hasn’t changed her beliefs at all. She thinks they’re great guys, and admits they’re great parents, but she just can’t accept, morally, the idea of them as parents. Doing so, she says, would compromise a fundamental part of who she is.

“What’s fantastic [about this episode] is that everything doesn’t just get wrapped up in a nice little bow,” Morgan Spurlock tells AfterElton.com. “What I think makes 30 Days so great is it shows how imperfect things are, but at the same time it shows how much further I think we all need to go to continue to achieve some level of tolerance and understanding with one another.”

“I’ve heard people say things about gay parents,” says Dennis Patrick, one half of the gay couple in question. “I’ve heard it at the state capitol [where Tom and I have testified about our family]. I’ve read it in the newspaper. And I’ve always thought, ‘Gee, if you just meet us, that’s all it would take. If you could just spend a day with us, your mind would change.’ And I learned that it’s not that simple. They may look at us and say, ‘Yeah, they seem to be good parents and they are nice guys, but it’s still wrong.’ That was new to me. I wasn’t anticipating that.”

From left to right: Kati, Dennis Patrick, Thomas Patrick

Photo credit: FX

Indeed, part of what’s so fascinating about this episode is how this woman, who is clearly neither stupid nor insane, can hold two sets of absolutely contradictory views: that foster care is terrible for kids and that Dennis and Tom are fantastic parents, but that all gay couples, including Dennis and Tom, should not be allowed to adopt, forcing more kids into foster care.

“If she would’ve started changing her beliefs about a gay dad, that would call into question some of her religious beliefs that are telling her this is wrong, and I just don’t think she was prepared to do that,” Dennis Patrick says.

What does the woman in question think about things now? Kati, who declined to use her last name on the show, is refusing all interviews.

From the start, Spurlock wanted 30 Days to be provocative, but also informative and fair. It wasn’t just about putting people in awkward or unfamiliar situations and sitting back to watch the fireworks; he wanted it to actually add illumination to the issue in question. Even the title of tonight’s episode, “Same Sex Parenting,” is straightforward and non-inflammatory, exactly like the show itself.