Reading Roundup on Lesbian Moms

A few stories from round and about:

• “Gay woman’s home is haven for struggling youths” from Lower Hudson Online, is about Mary Keane, a single mother and lesbian in Westchester County, New York, who has opened her home to 18 foster or adopted children, some gay or lesbian and some straight. (Thanks, PageOneQ.)
• “Gay life: Change and challenge,” from CNN, profiles two lesbian moms as well as a gay man who was discharged from the Army under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The moms moved from Oklahoma to Massachusetts so they could both become legal parents to their son, validate their relationship, and have greater acceptance at work. They are now returning to Oklahoma, a move that highlights the difficulties same-sex couples face when crossing state lines. (Thanks, Wayne.)
• “Lesbian Couple With Twin Girls Say They Deserve Same Rights As Others,” from NY1 in Staten Island is a nice, supportive introduction to a same-sex family, in a fairly standard mass-media way. I don’t like the introductory sentence, though, which sounds a bit dramatic: “As we continue to mark Pride Week here on NY1, we turn to a Staten Island family that’s re-defining the meaning of family.” Even though the moms recognize their family’s differences, they also convey that family means love, care, and attention—which, last time I checked, was part of anyone’s definition of the term. Still, the article is a positive one, and notable for not including any quotes from ultra conservatives.

New Jersey School Blacks Out Gay Couple’s Yearbook Photo

A New Jersey High School has taken every copy of its new yearbook and blacked out a photo of a student kissing his boyfriend—even though it left photos of opposite-sex couples kissing. The photo appeared in a section of pages that students may purchase to fill with pictures of family and friends. NJ.com reports:

Newark Superintendent of Schools Marion Bolden called the photograph “illicit” and ordered it blacked out of the $85 yearbook before it was distributed to students at a banquet for graduating seniors Thursday.

“It looked provocative,” she said. “If it was either heterosexual or gay, it should have been blacked out. It’s how they posed for the picture.”

Russell Garris, the assistant superintendent who oversees the city’s high schools, brought the photograph to Bolden’s attention Thursday afternoon. He was concerned the picture would be controversial and upsetting to parents, Bolden said.

What about the parents to whom removing the photo would be upsetting? Parents of those students, parents of their friends, parents of other LGBT students, LGBT parents, parents of students who fear prejudice for being in some way different, fair-minded parents of all types? What about all the students, too, and the message of exclusion they received?

NJ.com is showing a copy of the photo. Doesn’t look provocative to me. They’re at an angle where they’re not even in a full-on lip-lock. This is a simple case of discrimination. It’s time to stop worrying about upsetting small-minded people, however vocal, and start doing the right thing. Our children deserve no less.

You can send a message to Superintendent Bolden through the Garden State Equality Web site. (Yes, this happened in a state that is among the leaders in recognizing same-sex couples. Yet another sign of how much remains to be done.)

Weekly Political Roundup

• The California Supreme Court asked lawyers in the state same-sex marriage case whether the state’s domestic-partnership law “provides all the benefits of marriage, and whether the term ‘marriage’ has special legal significance.” (Well, yes, otherwise why would we want it?)
• The University of Kentucky has expanded its health insurance scheme to include all dependents residing with employees. This is an attempt to avoid a legal challenge to the University’s decision to provide benefits to same-sex partners, a move the State Attorney General had said would violate the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
• New Jersey has added transgender protections to its anti-discrimination laws.
• The New York State Assembly passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, a measure Governor Eliot Spitzer has said he will support. Before the bill goes to the Governor, however, it must pass the state Senate. Majority Leader Joseph Bruno opposes the bill, and is expect to prevent it from coming to the floor. Read the rest of this post »

Go Camp!

This Saturday, June 23, is the annual Great American Backyard Campout (GABC), an event sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation “for families, youth and individuals to camp out in their backyards or local parks and to discover the fun of being in the great outdoors.”

For those with young children, it’s a chance to try some of the mechanics of camping (setting up a tent, sleeping together in a 6′ x 6′ space) without the stress of packing and travel. For those with older kids, it’s a chance to let them run the show of campsite setup (or to say “Go camp outside, and let us adults have the house for the night.”) You could also gather some friends and find a nearby state park for a group outing.

The GABC site has hints on the practicalities of camping, as well as activities like campfire songs, recipes, and games. If you register, you can also contribute to the Scrapbook, a forum for sharing camping stories, and list your Camper Profiles. This is a great way to get additional ideas for your adventures, but also a way once again to raise the visibility of LGBT families. Not that you have to talk about LGBT issues—but simply showing you are an LGBT family (“My partner and I went camping with our daughter . . .”) can help people realize we do more than go to Pride Marches and destroy the foundations of Western society.

Mombian Turns Two

Two years ago today, I wrote my first post for Mombian. My goal was to create a blog of useful and fun news and resources for lesbian moms—as lesbians and as moms. Today, I look back on over 1000 posts, two successful Blogging for LGBT Families Days, almost 600 entries in the Mombian Resource Directory, and a growing number of readers.

More important than the numbers, however, are the connections I’ve made with so many of you, including those I am now proud to call friends. We are building a community here in the lesbian-mom blogosphere, and the LGBT-families blogosphere, and all of the other intersecting spheres to which we belong. I’m glad to be a part of it.

I also look at my motivation for this site, my son, who has doubled his age during the blog’s existence. I’m not the only LGBT parent, I know, writing for my child as much as myself, recording the stories I want him to know when older and trying to make the world a better place for him. Here’s to him, and you, and my partner for putting up with all my late nights. I can’t wait to see what the next two years will bring for all of us.

Giving Genetics the (Ring) Finger

Boys with ring fingers longer than their index fingers tend to do better in math, according to a new study by psychologists at the University of Bath. (Thanks, Slashdot.) This would be nothing more than an interesting tidbit that might make me check my son’s hands next time I cut his nails, except that it follows other research indicating that women with longer relative ring fingers are more likely to have high athletic ability and to be lesbians. Gay men follow this pattern as well, but somehow only when they have several older brothers. The Bath study also concluded that shorter ring fingers on girls predict better verbal skills. Higher testosterone levels in the womb appear to be the cause of longer ring fingers and their attendant traits.

Having passed my genes on to someone, I consider myself now fully qualified to speculate wildly on any and all aspects of genetics. Does this mean that lesbians are inarticulate jocks? Or softball-playing mathematicians? Would it follow that boys with shorter ring fingers are more likely to be gay and have better verbal skills, thus accounting for the preponderance of gay male poets?

Well, no—or at least not categorically. There are lesbian poets aplenty (not to mention all of us dyke bloggers), and the father of computer science, Alan Turing, is proof that one can be a gay man, a mathematical genius, and a world-class athlete. This just goes to show that when it comes to some of her secrets, Mother Nature is still giving all of us the finger.

Children and Identity: All Possibilities

Two articles today gave me cause for reflection about children of LGBT families and the development of identity: “I’m Not Gay, but My Four Mums Are,” in the Sydney Morning Herald profiles 21-year-old Eamon Waterford, who was born into a two-mom family, but acquired two more when they split up and repartnered. (Thanks, Abigail.) The article is full of plaudits for same-sex couples and our ability to raise well-adjusted children, though Eamon wryly notes LGBT parents’ ability “to mess their kids up in exactly the same way hetero parents will do.” It does not, however, shy away from exploring some of the distinctive issues in our families, such as Eamon’s search to find a comfortable relationship with his biological father and his wife. Also, unlike most coverage of same-sex families, this one does not cite any ultra-right “authorities” spouting prejudice disguised as scientific “evidence,” though it does note that conservative opposition exists.

One old chestnut the article does cover, though, is the question of whether children of same-sex parents will be gay or lesbian themselves. Read the rest of this post »

Family Voices III

This week’s Family Voices interview is with lesbian mom Ruth, who lives in San Antonio with her partner Della and their eight children. Ruth writes “We have kids created nearly every way but alien abduction.” Although they live in a fairly conservative area of the country, their experiences with the legal and medical systems and the Catholic Church are not what you might expect.

As with the previous families highlighted in this feature, they are members of the Family Pride Coalition’s OUTSpoken Families program, and committed to speaking with their local communities and media (and the occasional blog!) about their lives and the need for LGBT equality. Read the rest of this post »

The Cheapening of Marriage

The “99 Cents Only” store in Lewisville, Texas, will be hosting a licensed minister on June 30 who will perform ceremonies at the store for—you guessed it—99 cents.

Shouldn’t someone be defending against this sort of thing?

Vermont Judge Rules in Interstate Lesbian-Custody Case

In a case that bounced between the jurisdictions of Vermont and Virginia and was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in April, a Vermont judge awarded Lisa Miller (formerly Miller-Jenkins) custody of her biological daughter, Isabella, though he mandated regular visitation rights for the girl’s non-biological mother, Janet Jenkins (formerly Miller-Jenkins).

I’ve written about this case several times before. I admit I was hoping the court would rule for Janet Jenkins to have primary custody; Lisa Miller’s sudden conversion to being straight and her association with an ultra-conservative legal organization always seemed duplicitous and self-serving. She has, however, had custody of Isabella for the past two years, during which she did not let her see Jenkins. This was an awful thing to do, but perhaps “the best interests of the child” now mean keeping the continuity in her life. Perhaps, though, the judge simply falls into the “biology is everything” camp. It’s hard to tell from here. This is a blow for non-bio moms; we can only hope it is to the benefit of Isabella.