The street Toby and Jean live on is lined with split-level houses painted in tasteful colors, beige or yellow or gray, each with a postage-stamp yard. Every house is a variation on a theme: if not a pickup truck in the driveway, then an SUV; if not a tricycle, then a basketball hoop. The lawns are sprinkler-fed green and neatly trimmed; the flower borders teem with zinnias, crepe myrtle, roses. People take pride in their yards, and in orderliness. Almost every other house flies an American flag, though Toby and Jean do not. Next to their house, at the crossroads of two streets, stands a sign: "Warning: Neighborhood watch. We will report all suspicious activities and people to the police." Although usually less politically showy, today Toby is feeling defiant. "I've been meaning to get a bisexual flag," she says, "but I just haven't found the right one."

In fact, there is little visible about Toby and Jean's house to set it apart. If you ignore the rainbow flag and pro-Green bumper stickers on the pickup truck in the driveway, this could be the house of any neighborhood family with a 3-year-old. In the living room, crayoned butterflies are taped to the wall at preschool height; on the dining room table a lone Cheerio lies marooned 4 feet from the high chair from whence it came. This particular Sunday afternoon, Jean is in the kitchen stirring tomato sauce as Kalen runs into her leg, yelling. "Look, Boo, look!" she says, holding up a drawing. "That's great, Kalen. Go show Mommy." "Mommy, Mommy!" Kalen runs off yelling to the home office at the other end of the house. "Boo is her name for me," explains Jean, looking up from the stove. "When she was really little she would kind of coo at me, and I'd say, 'Look, Toby, she called me 'Boo'! So that's who I am. I'm the dad."

But thus far, people in Auburn are not quite ready for a woman to be a dad, no matter what name you give her.

Doug and Debra Kyles live a few houses down the street, with three young kids of their own. They've gotten to know Toby and Jean, and sometimes Debra baby-sits for Kalen. Clearly she has real affection for the little girl, but when asked, she expresses frank concern for Kalen's future as the daughter of a same-sex couple. "They're nice people," she says, "and if they needed me for anything, I'd be there. But I do have an opinion when it comes to having a child in that environment. I don't think it's right. I think a child needs both male and female role models, to balance the child out. Bottom line, I just don't agree with homosexuals raising children."

Her husband, Doug, a middle-aged welding contractor who has lived in Auburn all his life, goes further. "I don't care if they're really nice," he says. "If I had it my way I'd oust them. I just don't like them around here. You think I want my kids looking at that? And thinking hey, that's OK? There's a lot of rednecks around here and they're not going to tolerate it, trust me." The Kyles are planning to move as a result of Toby and Jean's presence. As of yet, though, there's no For Sale sign in front of their house.

The preschool Kalen attends shares space with the county fairgrounds, and though it is within walking distance from Toby and Jean's house, Toby is running late the Monday of the orientation for new parents and decides to drive. She wears a T-shirt and shorts to the meeting, her hair pulled back in a short ponytail, and as she pulls onto the dirt driveway and rolls down the window to talk to two parents on their way into the building, she looks every bit like a slightly harried soccer mom. "Do you know which room we're supposed to meet in?" she asks. The woman answers, then squints. "Hey, you were at St. Luke's a few weeks ago and stood up to give thanks, right?" Toby says yes. "Ah," says the woman, and pauses. "Well, see you inside."

Past the school sign painted in rainbow colors there is a noisy, hot room crowded with parents and their waist-high children. The parents here for the meeting are mostly women, mostly in dresses and makeup. The women have all taken care with their hair, and they are all traditionally feminine looking, and white. When Jean arrives, she stands out: no makeup, boy-cut blond hair, black jeans and an oversize, navy collared shirt. "This is my wife," Toby tells one woman nearby.

The meeting is long and boring. The wives are friendly to Toby and Jean. But when one of them is asked later what she thinks of the couple, she gets defensive: "Oh, them? Oh, you want to know what we think, up here in the middle of nowhere?" After softening, she acknowledges that they don't blend in. "Well, up here you just don't see it that much, so it tends to really stand out, though I really don't care. What the parents do is their own choice, as long as the kid is raised OK. But I lived in the Bay Area for a while, so maybe I'm more accepting than some."

As far as Kalen's teacher, Natalie Piercy, knows, all the preschool parents are very accepting of the Adams family. "People really love Kalen," she says. "But recently there've been a lot of new hires and they're always kind of surprised by Toby and Jean. They're shy to the idea, and then they see how it is and it's OK. Personally, I don't see any problem, with their situation or with Kalen's situation, but to be honest I do wonder how it will affect her in elementary school. Kids can be mean."

Born and raised in Auburn, Piercy, 23, says there's an ambivalence here about same-sex marriage -- one that she still struggles with herself. "My parents are really conservative and they've had a huge impact on my views," she says. Growing up, "the closest I came to knowing a gay person was watching "The Real World" -- which I think has had a huge impact on my generation as far as that's concerned. They introduced gay couples to the world." Today in Auburn, she says, "people like Toby and Jean, but when you ask them if they support gay marriages, they say no. That is in me too a little bit, and I don't really know how to address or confront that."

Three weeks after announcing their marriage in St. Luke's, Jean and Toby are back at church again -- and this time it is Toby who is nervous. In news that made headlines across the country, the Episcopal national convention recently decided to approve an openly gay bishop and voted to recognize that some dioceses hold blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. Those votes have split the St. Luke's congregation. "This is a challenging time for a lot of really solid churchgoing Christians," says Father Marcia, "and I'm aware of that on a very definite level." At St. Luke's, some parishioners are angry that their bishop voted to approve the ruling, and though Father Marcia agrees with the bishop's decisions, she has called a meeting of the congregation after the Sunday service to talk about it. One of the issues to be discussed is Toby. Currently, St. Luke's parish does not have a sacrament blessing same-sex marriage -- and although Toby accepts and does not expect that to change with the recent ruling, many in the parish don't know that. A change would be disastrous, says church member Annie Holmes, one of the few Democrats in the parish. "If the new pastor wants to institute some kind of sacrament," she says, "that will really drive people into the arms of a more conservative church." Financially, St. Luke's can't afford to lose a single member.

The meeting is held after service in the ugly, grayish community room. Father Marcia's white collar peeks out from under her flowered dress as she sweeps past the rickety folding chairs and round tables filled with people. Bill Gausewitz, the senior warden and meeting officiant, stands. "I want to explain what the rulings actually were," he says. "They confirmed an openly homosexual bishop. They authorized local dioceses to establish rites of blessing gay marriages, and recognized that parishes are dealing with this in their own ways." He clears his throat. "I want St. Luke's to be open and welcoming to anyone who wants to come here ... Some people say they don't want to keep going to this church if the convention is going to ... I say that the convention doesn't change anything for our diocese." A few people glance surreptitiously at Toby, who looks only at the warden.

"Besides, there was a time when Father Marcia wouldn't be here," Gausewitz says. "Somehow that's worked." The room erupts in laughter and the tension eases -- for all except one older woman, who is visibly shaking with anger as she stands up. "There's no comparison," she says, "between the ordaining of a moral woman and a twice-divorced man who's been living with another man. We've got to protest. I remember Germany in the '30s and nobody protested and you know what we got from that."

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