W hen Ricky Martin posed with his twin sons on the cover of July's People en

Espanol, the image of an openly gay Latino father was on display for millions to see.

        While his coming forward about his homosexuality a few months earlier had people talking, its impact wasn't as significant to many gay Latino men as the image of Martin and his young family.

        "It was monumental," says San Francisco-based writer Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, who's covered gay and lesbian issues for years.

        "Here's another image of a Latino family...(Martin) is so visible in the mainstream and such a part of our pop culture that that cover could have a monumental impact," Herrera y Lozano tells Conexion by phone.

        Martin's sons are why he wrote an open letter to his fans in April sharing his reasons on why he was publicly revealing his homosexuality.

        "This is just what I need especially now that I am the father of two beautiful boys that are so full of light and who with their outlook teach me new things everyday," he had posted on his website last year. "To keep living as I did up until today would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my kids were born with. Enough is enough."

        He went on to say, "Every word that I write in this letter is born out of love, acceptance, detachment and real contentment. Writing this is a solid step towards my inner peace and a vital part of my evolution."

        Martin, whose sons Valentino and Matteo were born via surrogate, is hardly alone as a homosexual Latino parent in this country.

        More than a third of cohabiting same-sex couples in San Antonio are raising children, making it the city with the highest percentage of gay and lesbian parents in the United States, according to the new census data analyzed by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

        Of same-sex couples in San Antonio, 34 percent are raising children younger than 18, according to the study that used census data sampling known as American Community Survey.

        In the 2005 study "Hispanic and Latino Same-Sex Couple Households in the United States: A Report from the 2000 Census," the number of gay Latino couples raising children is more than three times the rate of white non-Latino male same-sex couples.

        Some of the highest concentrations of gay Latino couples raising families are in Texas and California, according to the same 2005 study conducted in part by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute and the National Latino/a Coalition.

        San Antonio-born entertainer Jade Esteban Estrada, who's worked with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and has included stories about being gay and Latino in his stand-up routines, has followed Martin's career for years. He says the desire of any Latino, either gay or straight, to have a family is rooted in the values of the Latino culture.

        "We love our families. For many of us, that's what's most important in life," he says.

        Estrada sees Martin's coming out last March as "not a big deal," but recognizes its significance for some.

        "Martin's coming out is not a big thing...What we care about these days is not who's gay and who's not, but the fact he's being open about his sexuality and is a single father that could really mean something to those yearning to have what their heterosexual brothers and sisters have - a family, a home, a life like others have, " Estrada says.