“ Using adoption or surrogacy, more homosexual men than ever before are becoming fathers. It's not a novelty—it's a movement. Look for it at a playground near you. "

"It's definitely happening," says Dan Savage, who writes the syndicated newspaper column "Savage Love" and is himself a gay father (he has a son). "Most of the people I know have adopted, but more and more gay men are opting for surrogacy because it gives you more control, and there are gay men who want that genetic relationship with their children."

"These days in vitro fertilization (IVF) (which involves implanting a lab-fertilized egg in a womb) is particularly popular, and increasingly effective... all these reproductive methods have some things in common: They're faster than adoption, don't involve persuading social workers that you are fit to be a parent, and allow you to pass your genes along to your children. Agencies and law offices that match potential parents with egg donors and surrogate mothers say they're flooded with gay-male candidates. John Weltman, the founder of Circle Surrogacy in Boston, says he had few gay hopefuls when he opened his doors 12 years ago. Today around 90 percent of his clients are gay."

"Most gay men opt for an IVF procedure using an egg from a donor placed in the body of a different woman, who carries the embryo to term. This is called gestational surrogacy and is favored because in some states it gives the carrier no legal rights to the child she gives birth to.“

"And it's not just gay couples who are investigating IVF.  Many homosexual men have  

decided to go it alone, which provides at least one tangible bonus: While single parenthood can be a turnoff on the heterosexual dating scene, being a single gay dad is—there's really no other word for it—hot. "

"In the gay community, having a child as a single man is a sign of assertiveness," says Ron Poole-Dayan, a marketing consultant who runs a biological-parent support group in Manhattan and has 7-year-old twins with his partner, Gregory Poole-Dayan. "It's also appealing to know this is a gay man who isn't afraid of commitment." Poole-Dayan says he's seen six out of the seven single gay dads he knows pair off after the births of their children.

That's what happened to B.J. Holt, 40, a general manager for Broadway stage productions. "I worried about being a single father," Holt says. "But sure enough, as soon as I started the process with a surrogate mother, I met my future partner." Today Holt and his partner, who asked that his name be withheld, are raising Christina, who is 7 months old.

Darek DeFreece, 36, an investment-banking attorney who lives in the Bay Area, was aware of the possible consequences of being a single father. "I worried about the workload, about having enough time to give to my family and my personal life," he says. But those concerns seemed relatively trivial when he looked at the long term. "It was especially important for me to have children as a single man. I looked at myself in the future, and being a single, older man without kids didn't seem like a desirable place to be." (DeFreece no longer has to worry about being on his own—he and his partner have 9-month-old twins, Jake and Riley Catherine.)

Excerpts from a May 2008 Details Magazine article, pages 78-83 , by Edward Lewine.