Originally published in Bay Windows, March 22, 2007.)
Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families sounds like the kind of book that gathers dust on the shelves of politicians and policy wonks. Sean Cahill, Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) Policy Institute, and Sarah Tobias, who has been a Senior Policy Analyst at the Demos think tank, have in fact written a compact, readable analysis of the major issues affecting LGBT families today. It belongs in the homes of anyone with even a small claim to interest in these matters.
One of the work’s strengths is that it brings together information that is otherwise scattered across various volumes and Web sites. How many same-sex households are there in the U.S., and how are they distributed geographically? How many have children? How do their incomes compare to the overall population, and how do discriminatory policies affect them? Does any of this vary by race? Anyone who writes or talks about LGBT families, whether professionally, in a volunteer role, or in the supermarket to their neighbors will benefit from being able to answer these questions quickly and accurately.
The book is more than just a compilation of facts, though. It weaves them into the history of the LGBT rights movement and the current debates on LGBT rights both within and outside the LGBT community. The authors start by reviewing the current state of LGBT policy needs and existing laws that affect us. Their sweep is broad, covering demographics of LGBT families, medical and psychological research on children of LGBT parents, adoption, foster parenting, and custody, access to reproductive technology, income and taxes, harassment of LGBT youth and children of LGBT parents, health-care matters, and more. They also include issues not often aired in mainstream coverage of LGBT rights, such as the role of race in the marriage debate, the impact of the debate on low-income lesbian mothers, elder concerns, and domestic violence.
Cahill and Tobias then turn to the various forms of relationship recognition for LGBT families, and give a brief historical overview of the fight for marriage equality in America. After looking at marriage, they review other forms of partnership recognition, such as civil unions, domestic partnerships, and reciprocal beneficiary status. Most of us have some familiarity with the first two, but may not know of the third unless we live in Hawaii or Vermont, the two states that use it to convey certain rights. That’s part of the book’s appeal—its wide scope may give even a long-time local activist new pieces of knowledge and a more national perspective.
The authors are not blind supporters of marriage equality. They spend a whole chapter discussing the viewpoint that activists would be better off working towards a variety of legal partnering options, not just marriage. They acknowledge that gender and race affect the weight given to the marriage issue even within the LGBT community. Ultimately, though, they conclude that while more LGBT families would benefit if family policies were not always tied to marriage, there are enough LGBT people who want marriage equality that “it must remain on the movement’s political agenda.” At the same time, they astutely assert “a focus on same-sex marriage cannot be the whole story or even the end of the story. Access to the institution of marriage will not end anti-gay bias. . . . It will not end anti-LGBT discrimination or hate violence.”
The book is not perfect. Many of its statistics are a year or two old. The maps of adoption and foster parenting laws, for example, are not as up to date as the ones on the NGLTF Web site. Still, the references are clear and there is a good bibliography, so those who need the latest information will know where to find it.
A few spots are misleading. In one example of a couple living in Massachusetts, the authors say “If they could marry and their marriage were recognized by the Social Security Administration, Christopher would be eligible for the spousal benefit.” It’s true the SSA doesn’t recognize their marriage—but if they live in Massachusetts, they can marry. Later, within a single paragraph, they state that Massachusetts allows same-sex marriage, whereas Vermont and Connecticut offer civil unions, but “A civil union is notably less comprehensive than marriage, because it offers no federal protections, and with few exceptions, it has not been recognized outside Vermont and Connecticut.” This implies that Massachusetts same-sex marriages carry federal protections and interstate recognition, which they don’t (and which the authors acknowledge elsewhere).
The authors sometimes also omit relevant details, such as the fact that Vice President Cheney’s waffling on same-sex marriage might be because of his dual role as a member of the Bush administration and the father of a lesbian. In another chapter, they cite Urvashi Vaid without stating that she is the former Executive Director of NGLTF, a fact that speaks both to her credibility and potential biases.
Despite these drawbacks, the book is the most accessible single volume on the whole sweep of LGBT family rights, packing facts, history, and talking points into less than 150 pages. Buy one for yourself, your parents, your interested neighbors, or your community center. It will be an educational read and become a valuable reference.
Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families, by Sean Cahill and Sarah Tobias (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007)