Illustration: Liu Rui

By last count, there are two and a half million descendants of Confucius alive in China today.

Documenting this remarkable lineage, 2,562 years after the birth of the sage philosopher, is a testament to the traditional Chinese respect for the family tree.

Preserving the kinship ties of marriage, children, ancestor worship and filial piety are so deeply ingrained in China's culture that it may be difficult for ordinary Chinese to understand the ways that the traditional family tree is being uprooted in American life. Sperm donors, adoption, surrogate mothers and homosexual marriage have redefined the family and made it impossible for many Americans to chart their genealogy by bloodlines or DNA.

My own family tree has become so tangled that it may need to sprout extra limbs.

Normally, down in Texas, my lesbian niece's delightful 4-year-old daughter Vivienne would be called my grandniece and I would be her great-uncle. But "Vivi" was a test tube baby conceived with the help of a family friend who served as a sperm donor.

In Texas, the space for the biological father's name on Vivi's birth certificate was left blank. Texas law forbids gay marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships.

My niece's female partner adopted Vivi to get around the law, which is buttressed by the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), declaring that marriage is strictly between one man and one woman.

As a concession to her lesbian partner, my niece gave Vivi the official family name of her "other mommy." This legal arrangement would probably send shivers down the spine of Chinese parents.

Then, to make a messy situation even messier, my niece split with her female partner. My niece can't say she's "divorced" in Texas because her "civil union" was never recognized by the state. Still, as an adoptive parent, the "other mommy" must pay child support and she gets the same visitation rights as a divorced dad. Meanwhile, my niece is now living with another woman, who brought her 5-year-old adopted son into the household.

If I were a Chinese descendant of Confucius, how would I find a branch of the family tree for a child with no father, three mothers and a different family name? My sister and brother-in-law are Vivi's grandparents by bloodline, but so are the parents of the sperm donor and his wife. Plus the adoptive mother's parents.

It's great for little Vivi that she now has four sets of grandparents doting on her, but I forgot to mention that the sperm donor also has a 5-year old son. So Vivi has a biological brother she seldom sees, and a little "brother" at home who shares no DNA with the rest of the family.

No one could accuse Chinese citizens of "religious bigotry" because they oppose same-sex marriage. Similarly, it is unfair to brand all US opponents of gay marriage as homophobes or religious conservatives.

True, many "born-again" Christians, white and black, oppose homosexuality as an "abomination" in the eyes of the Lord. It is equally true that many homophobic people believe that the spread of AIDS and the pedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church make homosexuals seem scary. But these are irrational fears, not hatred, and recent polls show nationwide support for same-sex marriage has grown to a slight majority of the population, 53 percent.

For reasons widely understood in modern China, the strong insistence on preserving family names and bloodlines requires that homosexuals marry and produce children, usually concealing their sexual preferences to protect their parents from feelings of shame and disgrace.

Some overseas Chinese scholars have suggested that legalizing gay marriage could help alleviate the gender imbalance of marriage-age men and women in China. But a family tree like mine just doesn't seem feasible in modern China.

As usual, my sister, Vivi's grandmother, had the last word. Her recent text message spoke for both of us.

"Vivi still wins ... half brother .... donor dad ... two ... no make that three moms ... a brother that lives with them but shares no one's DNA in the family ... yikes ... I guess I'll be too old to be around when it all hits the fan! For now I'll just love them all."

The author is an Emmy Award-winning TV news correspondent. barrycunningham@globaltimes.com.cn