MARY Portas divided opinion on the twittersphere this week after revealing that her brother Lawrence Newton is the biological father of her son.
The retail guru, one of five siblings born into a working class Irish family in Watford, revealed that she and her wife Melanie Rickey used Newton’s sperm to conceive their two-year-old son Horatio.
Portas divulges full details of the arrangement in her new book Shop Girl, which is released this week, and claims she hopes sharing their experience will positively “challenge” society’s perception of normal.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was one of the first to commend the pair on making their controversial revelation, tweeting ‘Beautiful. Sperm donor father is the brother of the lesbian partner of the mother. I can see why he felt honoured.’
Others followed, with Independent on Sunday editor @lisamarkwell stating ‘Bravo – modern families are made myriad ways, love is what matters’.
But the Director of the Dublin-based Iona Institute, which promotes more traditional views on marriage and family life, was less congratulatory.
David Quinn, who describes himself as an ‘Irish Catholic’ on his twitter page, was accused by twitter users of being an ‘extremist’ after posting ‘Mary Portas: My brother is the ‘father’ of my son suppose this another example of the ‘new normal’’.
His follower @LiffeyKing added ‘It’s like somebody went around not so long ago and changed all the price tags on morality resulting in some confusion’.
But Portas and Rickey refuse to be anything but proud of their choice, with the latter telling a Sunday newspaper: “Gay people are getting married and they are having children, so I don’t believe there is a downside to sharing the information.”
She added: “We are simply sharing something which feels very normal to us as a family – and if it inspires people or even makes them feel differently - or even if it challenges their perception of “normal” - then that can only be positive.”
