Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies?

Overview

Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies? is a child-facing religious tract by Sheila K. Butt, illustrated by Ken Perkins and associated with Apologetics Press. The collection record describes a classroom encounter with Michael, a child with two fathers who are considering marriage, followed by parental instruction that affirms divine love while condemning homosexuality. Its public value in the collection is contextual. The book documents how some religious publishers answered the rise of LGBTQ-family children’s books and same-sex marriage visibility before nationwide marriage equality in the United States. It should not be read as a neutral family-representation title. It is an oppositional object that helps explain the public and library-selection environment surrounding books such as Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s Roommate.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

A Counter-Text

The book is clearest when treated as a counter-text to LGBTQ-family children’s books. Product and resource descriptions place it in explicit relation to titles about gay and lesbian parents, while the local collection record describes a plot built around a child with two fathers. The object therefore belongs to the collection not because it expands representation, but because it documents a published response against that expansion. In a special-collections setting, oppositional material can clarify the social pressures around the books it targets.^[1][3][2]

Religious Instruction In Picture-Book Form

Apologetics Press describes its mission through Christian apologetics, and this book adapts that institutional purpose to a child reader. The narrative frame is simple: children meet a classmate with two fathers, bring the question home, and receive a religious answer from parents. That structure makes the book part story and part doctrinal lesson. It also shows how children’s-book formats could be used not only to normalize diverse families, but to teach opposition to them through domestic conversation and biblical authority.^[4][3][1]

Marriage Before Nationwide Recognition

The local plot account matters because Michael’s fathers are described as talking about marriage. Published before Obergefell v. Hodges, the book belongs to a period when same-sex marriage was a live public conflict rather than settled federal law. Its focus on two fathers considering marriage connects it to other collection items that present weddings, family ceremonies, and California marriage debates from affirming perspectives. The contrast makes the collection’s marriage-equality cluster more historically legible.^[1][6][3]

Library Selection Debate

The later ALSC discussion gives the item an institutional afterlife. It uses anti-gay books as a test case for how public libraries think about selection, intellectual freedom, and professional responsibility toward young readers. That context is important because it shifts the object from a simple question of content to a question of collection policy. A public library or special collection may preserve such an item as evidence of debate while still making clear that its rhetoric belongs to an oppositional publishing context.^[5][2]

Timeline

1. 1989Heather contextHeather Has Two Mommies appears before this later oppositional title.^[8]
2. 1990Daddy's Roommate contextDaddy's Roommate appears as another title later named in debates over gay-parent books.^[9]
3. 2006Metadata trail beginsSome library and catalog records place the title in a 2006/2007 publication window.^[2]
4. 2007Publication yearThe local collection and commerce records place the item around 2007.^[1][6]
5. 2013Library-selection discussionALSC publishes a discussion of anti-gay books and public library collection responsibilities.^[5]
6. 2015Marriage-recognition contextNationwide same-sex marriage recognition later changes how earlier marriage-opposition children’s books are read.^[1]

Context Trail

The record is strongest as context for debates around affirming LGBTQ-family books.

Citation

Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies?. Sheila K. Butt; illustrated by Ken Perkins. Apologetics Press, 2007. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-018.

Sources

Cover image from One Stone.

1. Local collection catalog record for Seth & Sara Ask Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies? · catalog
2. Open Library ISBN record for Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies? · library
3. One Stone listing for Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies? · bookseller
4. Apologetics Press about page · publisher
5. ALSC discussion of anti-gay books and library collections · library
6. Bol.com metadata for Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies? · bookseller
7. eBay product metadata for Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies? · bookseller
8. Open Library record for Heather Has Two Mommies · library
9. Open Library record for Daddy's Roommate · library