"You know Elton John, who wrote the Lion King music? He's gay! Isn't that so disgusting?"
A 10-year-old girl announced this recently to my 9-year-old daughter, who stared back, only dimly aware of the notion of homosexuality.

Anxious for someone to share her disgust, the 10-year-old turned to me. "Don't you think it's disgusting? He even admitted he's in love with a man! It's so disgusting!"

Suddenly, I found myself in one of those pivotal parenting moments; ambushed by a topic for which I was not prepared, yet knowing the wrong reaction can influence my child's attitude on a crucial human issue.

"Well, no, I don't think it's disgusting", I ventured. He's just in a different kind of relationship than people you may know. Different people have all different kings of relationships," I added, gaining force, "and it shouldn't really be disgusting how anyone else lives."

What, in fact, should parents say when their kids ask about homosexuality?

If we want to raise a generation more tolerant of human diversity than ours -- and surely we do -- then the context in which to discuss sexual orientation with our kids is this: people have different kinds of relationships and we should respect those differences.

And with very young kids, we should skip the sex part altogether, says social worker Tony Gambini of the Toronto Board of Education's student support services department -- and himself an openly gay man. Gambini, a consultant to teachers and students on sexual orientation, says the number of teachers seeking advice on how to discuss this topic with kids is growing, as is the number of students in gay-run families.

With little kids, he says, explain that people can have different kinds of families. "When you talk to 6-year-olds about sexual orientation, it doesn't mean talking about sex. Talk about different kinds of families -- some with maybe two daddies or two mommies who care about each other.

"It is not appropriate to talk to a 6-year-old about what gay parents do in bed, any more than we would talk about what heterosexual parents do in bed, or married parents or single parents. What is important is the caring. Focus on the affection, not the sex."

But the older the child, the more complex the question. Here are some suggestions Gambini has for handling particular issues:

If a child asks, "Do homosexual men want to be women?" say "No. They simply have affection for other men." Again, this reinforces the emphasis on relationships, not just sex. This approach would apply to a parallel question about lesbians.

Don't get angry with a child for repeating a stereotype. They're only repeating something they have heard and they won't know better until someone tells them. "In all fairness, these poor kids are bombarded by stereotypes in the media and all around them," Gambini says. "Very rarely are gay men portrayed as anything other than effeminate, so that's what they expect until someone explains that we're not all out of La Cage Aux Folles."

Talk about gay people you may know, as well as openly gay politicians, writers, athletes like Canadian Olympic silver medal boxer Mark Leduc, or tennis star Martina Navratilova, singers like k.d. lang or Melissa Etheridge, and actors like Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall or even the lesbian character on Roseanne, played by Sandra Bernhard.

In this way, kids will see how diverse the gay world is.

When kids ask "How do you get to be gay?" the current wisdom is, "We don't know, but we do know you don't 'choose' to be gay," Gambini says.

Whether it's nature or nurture shouldn't matter anyway, he says, because usually when people are interested in whether a person's gay, it's because they want to change them -- rather than accept them as they are.

If an older child says he thinks the notion of gay sex is "gross" -- as many teens tell Gambini when he speaks to high school students -- ask them what specifically they find gross.

With teens anxious to talk sexual specifics, explain that gays and lesbians don't engage in any sexual practices that are not done in the heterosexual world, Gambini says.

Also refer back to the notion of tolerating diversity: you may not like the idea of a certain sexual practice, just as you may not agree with someone else's religion or the way they raise their kids.

Parents may find it easier to broach the topic of gay relationships with the help of these books for school-age children:

"I'm Daddy's Roommate", by Michael Willhoite (Alyson Wonderland Publications), a boy spends weekends with his father, who is now openly gay. It offers a good example of how sex need play only a small part in describing gay families.

"Heather Has Two Mommies," by Leslee Newman (In Other Words Publishing) is about a girl born to a lesbian couple through artificial insemination.

Kids can color in the pictures of "The Daddy Machine," by Johnny Valentine (Alyson Wonderland) a poignantly funny story of children of lesbian parents wondering what it would be like to have a daddy, who build a daddy-making machine. It runs amok and starts churning out too many dads until they stop it and recall all but two of the manufactured dads.

Teens might read "How Would You Feel if Your Dad Was Gay?," by Ann Heron and Meredith Maran (Alyson Wonderland).