One final reminder that submissions for the January Carnival of Bent Attractions are due by January 1, 2007. I will showcase carnival entries here at Mombian on January 10.

This blog carnival is published monthly and is made up of submitted posts on topics of interest to the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, trans and queer communities—not just LGBTQ parenting topics, though those are welcome. If you are interested in submitting a post, please read the guidelines and submit all posts using the submission form at Blog Carnival.

Thanks to Maria at Daily Dose of Queer for organizing the overall Carnival.

The week is chock full of news:

• Former U. S. President Gerald Ford died this week. Both Pam at Pandagon and Planet Out document Ford’s support for lesbian and gay rights, including marriage equality.
• As expected, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin vetoed a bill that would have prevented the state from giving benefits to the partners of public employees. The State Supreme Court had earlier ruled that the state must offer such benefits. Palin herself “supports denying those benefits through a constitutional amendment, if that’s what the public wants,” but was bound by oath to uphold the Court ruling.
• California’s LGBT residents will gain various rights from eight new laws starting January 1.

Read more »

The BBC’s “Sex I.D. Quiz” claims to help you determine if your brain works more like typical male or typical female gray matter. (Thanks to Wired for the link.) I’m not usually one for such quickie tests, which I always assume cut scientific corners somewhere, but hey, it’s the holidays. Let’s have some fun—especially since I figure readers of this blog are likely to be curve-breakers when it comes to gender averages.

I took the test and scored bang on the average for men—although I don’t identify as butch. I tend to dress up femme and dress down butch, with the truth somewhere in between. The types of reasoning and perception the quiz said I was good at seemed pretty accurate, though. If anything, this just proves how complex the whole spectrum of gender is. (Maybe “constellation” is a better image than “spectrum.”) Of course, this is what my brain really looks like.

If you take the quiz yourself, leave a comment and share what you think of the results, along with any other thoughts you may have on gender, neuroscience, or online quizzes.

You’re a lesbian, a mom, and a blogger . . . and your children already have all the “I Love My Mommies” and “My Mommies Love Me” t-shirts you can handle. Spruce up their wardrobes with Mombian’s new “One of My Moms Is Blogging This” children’s wear. Our children’s T’s, sweatshirts, bibs, and infant creepers tell the world your child has two moms . . . at least one of whom blogs about the experience. Perfect for late holiday presents—or stock up now for Valentine’s Day.

Many of us are making last-minute charitable donations before the end of the year. The following sites can help you review information about your intended charities to ensure your money is being spent wisely:

• Charity Navigator is my favorite such service. It provides ratings for organizational efficiency, organizational capacity (ability to sustain efforts), and a comparison against similar charities. Historical data is available to registered users.
• GuideStar is similar, but requires (free) registration before providing any information. Most financial information is only available to paid subscribers.
• Give.org is the site for the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. The Alliance reports on national charities that are the subject of donor inquiries, and evaluates the subject charities in relation to the voluntary BBB charity standards. They also offer many useful tips on dealing with charities, including “Handling Unwanted Direct Mail from Charitable Organizations,” “Direct Mail Sweepstakes And Charities,” “Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions,” and “Tips on Donating Cars to Charities.”

(These are sites for U. S.-based charities. If you know of similar guides to organizations outside the States, please share in a comment.)

Don’t forget to ask your employer (or your partner’s employer) if they match donations. Remember that different employers may match different types of giving, so if you’ve changed jobs recently, ask again. As Paula at Queercents reminds us, too, charitable donations are tax deductible. Just make them before December 31 to claim them for that tax year.

My partner and I always try to spread our giving among various types of charities: national groups that tackle big societal issues as well as local charities that act more directly in our community. There are a few organizations we support almost every year, and some that reflect our particular activities in the past twelve months (e.g., a trails organization if we’ve done a lot of hiking). We could give a bigger lump to a single group, but prefer to feel connected to a variety of the charities that work on things important to us. It’s harder now that we’re a single-income family and trying to build up our other tax-deduction’s college fund, but I’d like to think we’re also setting an example of good citizenship.

With less than two weeks until the season premiere of The L Word, I thought I’d create a special section of the Mombian Shop for L Word books, music, and DVDs. Catch up on the episodes you’ve missed, read academic critiques of the series, or buy some tunes and dance around your living room. (Wear headphones if your children are napping.) There’s even a brand new “L Tunes” collection of music “from and inspired by” the show. (Yes, “inspired by” music is a marketing ploy, but this album looks pretty good regardless, with tracks from Pink, Betty, Nina Simone, and Tori Amos, among others.)

Yes, Season Three was a disappointment for some of us, as many characters took turns we didn’t like, but as Karman Kregloe of AfterEllen.com put it:

Even if some fans are hating The L-Word this season, it’s a testament to the quality of the show. As the saying goes, indifference—not hate—is the opposite of love. And one would be hard pressed to find a substantial number of truly indifferent fans. . . .

So viewers can be angry about Dana’s untimely death or Tina turning into a Stepford Wife, but they’ll probably going to keep watching because a.) they’re hooked, and b.) there’s still nothing else like The L Word on television.

I think it’s a given I won’t be posting to this blog between 10 and 11 p.m. EST on January 7.

My son’s latest favorite read is Wild About Books, by Judy Sierra. It’s the cheerful, rhyming tale of a librarian who accidentally drives her bookmobile into the zoo. The animals discover the fun of reading, and the zoo is never the same.

Marc Brown, author of the popular Arthur series, illustrated the book, but you’d never know it if his name wasn’t on the cover. The style of Wild About Books is all its own. If anything, the illustrations are more creative, colorful, and engaging than those of the Arthur series, reflecting Brown’s classical training at the Cleveland Art Institute.

For adults, much of the fun of reading the book comes from its many references, in word and picture, to other children’s titles—everything from Goodnight Moon to The Cat in the Hat to Harry Potter. The work is an original, though, despite its obvious reverence for its predecessors. In 2004, it won an Irma Simonton Black and James. H. Black Honor for Excellence in Children’s Literature. This accolade, less well known than the Caldecott and Newbery Awards, is unusual in that children are the final judges of the winners. Read it to the animal- or book-lovers in your household and see if they agree.

William Saletan of Slate, in his article Lesbians of Mass Destruction, uses Mary Cheney as a jumping-off point to argue the suitability of same-sex parents. (This will be, I suspect, Mary’s ongoing role, intentional or not, in the same-sex parenting debate.) Saletan nails some points like:

If the direct evidence [against same-sex parents] doesn’t bear you out [say conservatives], look for indirect evidence. So conservatives have developed a subtler argument: On average, children do best when raised by their two married, biological parents.

Let’s take this argument a piece at a time. It’s true that two parents are better than one. It’s also true that married parents are better than unmarried ones. But those aren’t arguments against gay parenthood. They’re arguments for gay marriage.

He then wades into less clear waters. In rebutting the claim of Focus on the Family “that gay parenthood is unhealthy because ‘it is biologically impossible for a child living in a same-sex home to be living with both natural parents,’ Saletan asserts, “the chief problem isn’t stepparents; it’s men,” noting that the “key risk factors [for physical and sexual abuse] are living with a stepfather or the mother’s boyfriend.” “Women commit 3.5 percent of single-perpetrator sexual assaults and make up 7 percent of the prison population,” he relates.

That may be true, but we need to be very careful here. The case for lesbian-moms’ rights shouldn’t be built at the expense of gay dads. That’s not Saletan’s intent, but he runs the risk of misinterpretation in this regard, especially with his conclusion that “You want to protect kids? Here’s my proposed constitutional amendment: ‘Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union involving at least one woman.’”

Saletan’s point is that it’s ridiculous to base law on averages or overly broad characterizations. Do that, and we end up with laws like his “proposed amendment” above. That’s valid, and I don’t want to take his tongue-in-cheek statement too seriously. I just hope others don’t, either. If men are more likely than women to abuse children, some might say, then what is the risk of two men raising children together? A dangerous train of thought, especially because gay men are already seen as the perpetrators of child abuse far in excess of actual statistics.

The rest of his article is full of well-put nuggets like:

James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, says Cheney’s pregnancy is a bad idea because a father “makes unique contributions to the task of parenting that a mother cannot emulate,” such as “a sense of right and wrong and its consequences.” You must be kidding. Cheney’s partner is a former park ranger. They met while playing collegiate hockey. If they want a night out to catch an NHL game, Grandpa Dick can drop by to read bedtime stories about detainee interrogation.

Kudos to Saletan for an article that goes beyond simply noting that the Republicans are hypocrites about Mary Cheney’s pregnancy (an important point, to be sure, but pretty well hashed out over the last few weeks). One to read and pass along.

As a writer, I think a lot about language, doubly so because I am also a lesbian mom at a time of raging debate over the terms used to define my family and our rights. Rather than do a traditional recap of news from 2006 to wrap up the year, therefore, I want to share a few recent articles about language and LGBT families, along with some words of wisdom from two preeminent lesbian poets and mothers. I think they are as good a way as any to inspire us for the year ahead. Read more »

A very happy Kwanzaa to those of you beginning its celebration today, in its 40th-anniversary year.

While Kwanzaa’s founder, Dr. Maulana Karenga, intended Kwanzaa to be “an African holiday created for African peoples,” he also said that “Any particular message that is good for a particular people, if it is human in its content and ethical in its grounding, speaks not just to that people, it speaks to the world.” With that in mind, I want to share part of his annual Kwanzaa message (PDF link). It is a precept many of us, of African descent or not, may find compelling:

Let us move forward, then, confident in our right and responsibility to challenge and expand the social and moral imagination of society and the world. And let us keep the good faith of our forefathers and mothers, steadfastly devoted to justice, self-consciously open to sharing and profoundly committed to that ancient and ongoing ethical mandate to constantly strive and struggle to make good ever more present and powerful in the world.