A pitch for 'radical normalcy'

Radically normal.

That's the phrase Zach Wahls uses to describe the women who raised him.

And it's a fitting description of the Iowa City kid-turned-gay rights superstar whose message has resonated with millions of people around the world.

“Our family isn't really so different from any other Iowa family,” Wahls said last year when he stood before state legislators to oppose a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

It took a few days for the impact of those words to sink in, he told me Monday.

Impact, perhaps, being an understatement.

Video of Wahl's three-minute testimony has been viewed online more than 18 million times. His speaking schedule has him traveling three-and-a-half weeks a month.

He'll read from his new book, “My Two Moms: Lessons of love, strength, and what makes a family,” at Prairie Lights this Saturday.

When he squeezed me in Monday, the University of Iowa civil and environmental engineering student had a full media schedule, including an appearance on the “Late Show” with David Letterman.

What's it like growing up with two moms, Letterman asked him.

“It's like being really tall,” Wahls answered. “You don't notice it until someone points it out.”

Or as he told me: “You can't just pick me out of a lineup.”

If anything, the Eagle Scout and high school debater - a rare 20-year-old who can pull off wearing a business suit without looking like he borrowed it from an uncle - leans a bit toward the nerdy side.

Not that any of that has anything to do with his parents' sexual orientation. If he's successful, he says, it's because they are great parents, not because they're gay.

He credits his family's values - such as strength, courage, innovation and hard work - for him and his sister turning out well. “Relatively well, anyway,” he said. Add modesty to the list.

“There are a whole lot of us out there,” he said. Kids of same-sex families as happy, as grumpy, as quirky, as boring - as everything - as their “traditional” counterparts.

It reminds you of what Wahls told legislators at the start of this crazy journey: “What you're voting on here isn't to change us. It's to change how the law views us, how the law treats us.”

So he'll continue to spread the word, although he hopes to get back to his studies soon.

“This issue of LGBT rights will hopefully be resolved before too long,” he said.

No big deal. Just unrelentingly, radically normal.

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