Carol Leifer's New Book

At age 50, Carol Leifer adopted a son. That's not such a big news item these days, with many celebrities adopting kids, sometimes two or three at a time. But Leifer, who has a new book out, is a 52-year-old lesbian Jewish stand-up comedian from Long Island.

Leifer started out as a writer for "Seinfeld". She has an impressive résumé. She produced or wrote for "The Larry Sanders Show", "Saturday Night Live", and "The Ellen Show". She starred in her own HBO specials, appeared on "The Tonight Show" (with both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno), Late Night With David Letterman, and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Earlier this year, she released her first book, "When You Lie About Your Age, the Terrorists Win," which gets this year's award for best title for a book about a lesbian comedian.

Leifer was previously straight. She was married to a man and dated Jerry Seinfeld. As for her book, she told the Advocate in a May interview: "There are so many parts of the book that I really do hope are inspirational. We are still changing and growing and the best part of you can still be around the corner". Leifer spoke to the Advocate about her current relationship, which started when she turned 40: "The last thing I expected was to fall in love with this person [partner Lori Wolf] and be sitting here almost 13 years later and have a child together."

In her interview with the Advocate, Leifer went on to talk about the reactions she got from her book: "I went on The View, and I talked about having a partner for 12 years, and the audience applauded. I’ll bet you there were plenty of women in that audience who would have voted against gay marriage and against gays adopting. It’s one baby step at a time. I did Mike Huckabee’s show, and his audience is obviously very conservative. They have a section called 'The Hot Seat' where I got to ask him some questions. And I said, 'Why do you feel people like myself shouldn’t be able to adopt?' And he said, 'Well when you phrase it that way, you make it so personal.' Exactly. The more we’re out there talking about our lives, our relationships, about our children, our families, it chips away at people. I got a few Facebook messages after that, saying, 'Dear Carol, I am your typical conservative and I love Mike Huckabee, but I think gays should be able to adopt.' You put a human face on it, and it’s hard to discriminate, because you’re talking about a real person. The only thing that’s been disappointing in my press tour is that there’s a misguided impression that, 'Oh, you’re 40 and it didn’t work out with men, so you go to women.' That’s so off-the-map wrong."

"When You Lie About Your Age, The Terrorists Win" can be bought in bookstores near you or at Amazon.com.

To read more of Carol Leifer's May interview with the Advocate, please go to: http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid83662.asp