Abigail Garner, author of the must-read Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is, publisher of Web sites Damn Straight and Oversampled, and all-around advocate for LGBT families, has announced she will leave her career as “professional queerspawn” as of the end of the year.

Abigail has done a tremendous amount for LGBT families through her book, her public speaking, and her attempts to “[build] a queerspawn movement that does not rely to heavily on one voice, or even a small handful of voices.” Her book and her Web sites are full of information and resources for children of LGBT parents and parents themselves. They will continue as a testament to her work even as she moves on to another phase of her life.

You can read more about her decision and future plans in the FAQs on her Web site.

Best of luck, Abigail! I wish you well in your future endeavors.

• California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger showed his middle-of-the-road orientation this week. He signed one bill making it harder to use the “gay panic” defense, another that standardizes housing laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and a third that adds fair treatment of LGBT people to a voluntary pledge taken by candidates and campaign committees. On the other side, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have strengthened existing state law prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination and harassment in public schools.
• The Georgia Court of Appeals awarded a lesbian mom primary custody over her child, overturning a lower court ruling that denied them to her because she lived with a same-sex partner. The child’s father had been given custody by the lower court, despite having been jailed for delinquent child support payments.
• A Superior Court judge in Massachusetts ruled that same-sex couples from Rhode Island have the right to marry in Massachusetts. Massachusetts law prevents out-of-staters from marrying there if their home states prohibit same-sex marriage. Because Rhode Island does not specifically ban it, the judge ruled its residents can legally travel to their northern neighbor to marry. Rhode Island is not, however, obligated to recognize those marriages.
• A new poll in Minnesota found that opposition to a ban on same-sex marriage has dropped within the state, although a majority still favor a ban. Similarly, opposition to civil unions has dropped, in this case putting supporters in the majority.
• A Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled that neither the state legislature nor several municipalities could argue against a lawsuit seeking domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian state workers. The Republican-controlled legislature had hired the conservative Alliance Defense Fund (co-founded by James Dobson, chair of Focus on the Family), to represent them in the case, saying they didn’t trust the Wisconsin Department of Justice (headed by a Democrat who supports partner benefits) to properly represent the state.
• Mothertalkers highlights some frightening new statistics on the number of uninsured children in the U. S.: over nine million. A whopping 88.3% of them come from families where at least one parent works.

And a few items from north of the 49th parallel:

• In Canada, activists for and against same-sex marriage say the Conservative government has delayed a vote to reopen the issue. Some say this move could help those who oppose same-sex marriage, giving them time to mobilize others who oppose it but are not now ready to revisit the matter. The vote is now expected to occur at the end of the fall sitting of Parliament, though the government would not confirm that.
• Meanwhile, openly gay Canadian MP Bill Siksay is calling for the adoption of the Declaration of Montreal in his country’s foreign policy. The Declaration is a statement of LGBT human rights, codified at an international LGBT rights conference last summer. Even if the House adopts Siksay’s motion, however, the government would not be obligated to follow it.
• The Ontario Court of Appeal—the province’s highest—will hear a case perhaps unique in the world, and decide whether a lesbian couple and their son’s biological father can all become the boy’s legal parents. The biological mother and the father are currently the legal parents. Both support the application by the bio mom’s partner to be named the third legal guardian.

Has anyone else noticed that some containers of Play-Doh products contain the warning: “Molded results vary depending on child’s age and level of skill”? I suppose I should have expected such a thing in a country where all takeout coffee cups must caution us that “Contents May be Hot.” Come on, though. Is any parent really going to sue Hasbro because Junior’s Play-Doh firetruck looks like a squashed sausage instead of the carefully detailed 02truck on the box, which was surely done by someone with a BFA degree? Maybe my digital camera should have a sticker on the back saying “Pictures taken with this camera may not resemble those of Annie Leibovitz.”

Tomorrow, September 30, is Museum Day, and that means museums across the U. S. will be offering free admission. Simply print a pass from the Smithsonian Web site and you and a guest can get in free to participating museums. (Special exhibits may not qualify.) The Smithsonian organizes the yearly event, but this is the first time those other than Smithsonian magazine subscribers may take part.

Thanks to Queercents for the sighting. They’ve also published a useful list of tips to make your museum trip more enjoyable.

Before You Were Born: Our Wish for a Baby is a book series by registered nurse Janice Grimes, who works in an IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinic and is an IVF mom herself. The series is intended to help parents explain genetic origins to children conceived by assisted reproduction. Each of the sixteen volumes explains a different approach—donor egg, donor sperm, surrogacy, etc.—in the context of various parental relationships: opposite-sex couple, same-sex couple, single mom, and single dad. This review will focus on the volume “A Baby Conceived for Female Partners.” Read more »

Women whose ring fingers are longer than their index fingers are more likely to have high athletic ability, a new study from King’s College London claims. Interestingly, an earlier study from the University of California-Berkeley showed that lesbians also tend to have longer ring fingers.

Does this mean all lesbians are athletes? Or all female athletes are lesbians? While some might hope so, this is clearly not the case. It may, however, help explain why the number of lesbians in sports seems to be out of proportion to our number in the general population. (I can’t seem to find any definite stats on this, though. Leave a comment if you can.)

The earlier study hypothesized that hormones in the womb affected finger length and sexual orientation. The London study, however, found that genetics, not womb environment, was the main factor in determining finger length. One could speculate that this means lesbians who match the long-ring-finger pattern are also more likely to have long-ring-fingered and athletic bio-daughters. (The study did not look at whether ring finger length in men indicated athletic prowess.)

I’ve long been a fan of Swedish furniture company IKEA’s smart design and low prices. Today, the company announced it will be rolling out a line of branded food products this fall, building on a number of Swedish edibles it already offers. (Thanks, Slashfood.) The company says “prices will follow the IKEA spirit of cheap goods for everyone.”

One wonders, of course, if its food products will come with a universal assembly tool like the “IKEA Tool” hex wrench enclosed in all of its furniture boxes. Something spork-like, perhaps.

Update: One more reason to shop at IKEA. Abigail at Damn Straight points out that the company’s latest U. S. commercial includes a same-sex family.

I received an e-mail from HRC today, advertising their limited-edition holiday ornament and holiday greeting cards.

Reality check: It’s still September.

I’ve heard rumors of people who do their holiday shopping this early, but I’m not sure I want to know anyone that organized. If I manage to have a Halloween costume ready for my son, I’ll consider it a success. Winter holiday shopping will commence no earlier than December 1. The only thing I prepared for this far in advance was the birth of my son, and I want to keep it that way. Otherwise we’ll end up with ridiculous situations like trick-or-treating for chocolate hearts, in order to be set for Valentine’s Day. Stop the insanity.

Many parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children because of concerns that some may in fact cause serious health problems. Whole-cell pertussis (DTP) vaccine and combined measles-mumps- rubella (MMR) vaccine, for example, have been associated with an increased frequency encephalopathy or encephalitis.

A new report, however, says that childhood vaccination against whooping cough (pertussis) and measles is not associated with an increased risk for encephalopathy. Even if there were a small increase in the risk of encephalopathy after DTP or MMR vaccinations, which they did not manage to detect, “the absolute risk is extremely small and it is much lower after vaccination than after pertussis or measles.”

The decision to vaccinate or not is a personal one that we should each talk over with our own families and health-care providers. Use the above information in conjunction with further input, and come to your own conclusion. (Wikipedia has a lengthy overview of the vaccine controversy. While I always take Wikipedia articles with a spoonful or two of salt, this one includes a nice list of links to outside articles pro and con. A good place to start your own research.)

The chat is now over. Thanks to those of you who participated, and to Rosanna for joining us.

Welcome to those of you coming here for tonight’s chat with Rosanna Hertz, author of Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice.

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