Weekly Political Roundup

• The ACLU launched Get Busy, Get Equal, a toolkit building and protecting the rights of LGBT people.
• ExxonMobil shareholders voted down a resolution to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the company’s non-discrimination statement. Before Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999, Mobil had provided these protections to gay employees and benefits to their same-sex partners. After the merger, the company dropped them.
• Same-sex couples in California will be able to marry starting June 17. . .
• . . . assuming the attorneys general of Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah fail in their attempt to get the California Supreme Court to stay its ruling until after the November election. They seem peeved they would have to determine whether their states should recognize the marriages.
• A new Field Poll said a majority of California voters now support legal marriage between same-sex couples and oppose a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Read the rest of this post »

New York Recognizes Massachusetts Marriages; Still Opposed to Red Sox

New York Gov. David A. Paterson has told all state agencies that marriages of same-sex couples from other jurisdictions “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

He failed, however, in his attempt to make all couples wearing Red Sox paraphernalia don pinstripes before being recognized, after a strongly worded memo from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick pointed out the Sox were ahead of the Yankees in the standings. A similar phone call from Toronto’s mayor closely avoided an international incident. Read the rest of this post »

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 30

Helen and I celebrate our 30th vlog with a special edition on kids and video games, specifically, younger children and Web-based games. We’re tackling this topic in conjunction with Angela and Tracy of Lesbiangamers.com, who will be doing an upcoming episode of their vlog Gay Girls Who Game that looks at older kids and other gaming systems. (If you have older kids who game or you’re a gamer yourself, you should definitely check them out.)

We share a slew of our favorite games, including some associated with TV shows and other mass-market products, as well as a bunch of independent games from places you might not expect. One show-based game even features an actor from the lesbian comedy 3Way, featured at After Ellen. (Bonus points if you can guess who before watching the vlog.) We also discuss our philosophy of video games and the benefits and perils of letting young kids play. Plus: panda-goats and a reminder about Blogging for LGBT Families Day.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

If the Veoh video above isn’t working (sometimes their server can be flaky), you can try it at Daily Motion.

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Sports, Kids, and Lesbian Moms: Discuss

My son and I were watching the French Open today. Last weekend, we caught some English soccer (aka “football”), and we regularly watch the Red Sox, especially when my dad’s around. I know Helen and I have made an effort to expose our son to professional sports as well as getting him involved in playing them. Not that we’re trying to make him into a star athlete, but we know that many of his peers watch a lot of sports, and we don’t want to put him at a disadvantage. Watching professionals is one way to learn skills (along with practice, of course), and even if it’s a sport he’ll never play, knowing the lingo gives him a cultural literacy that should serve him well on the playground. (We still mute most of the commercials, though—there are certain aspects of cultural literacy that aren’t appropriate for preschoolers.)

We’ve noticed, however, that when his peers with opposite-sex parents watch sports, it’s usually with their dads. Yes, there’s no reason they couldn’t watch sports with their moms, and I’m sure some do, but by and large it seems to be a dad thing. This is the point at which the more conservative minded will jump up and down and say “See? A dad is necessary,” to which I reply, “Just because this is usually a man’s role doesn’t mean it always has to be. Now move over, you’re blocking the game.”

Viewing sports with our son wasn’t a stretch for us because we played and followed sports long before becoming parents. I find, however, that I’m making more of an effort to turn on men’s sports as well as women’s, and to watch the sports that my son himself is playing (like soccer).

I was wondering if our experience was similar to other lesbian moms out there. Do you turn on sports you wouldn’t otherwise watch in order to expose your children to them, especially if this is something their peers do with their male parents? Do you make a point to watch athletes of a certain gender, based on the gender of your kids (or do you make a point to watch both)? Do you think children with lesbian moms in general watch less sports than those with a straight dad in the household? Are there advantages and disadvantages either way? (Certainly there are a number of professional athletes not appropriate as role models for anyone.) Your thoughts?

A Few for the Children

Here are a few recent items of interest for children of LGBT parents, and one (mostly) for children of non-LGBT parents:

• The 2002 film Our House: A Very Real Documentary About Kids of Gay & Lesbian Parents has been re-released on DVD. I haven’t seen it myself, but Abigail Garner recommends it, and that’s good enough for me. The documentary won Best Documentary jury awards at both the Los Angeles and New York Lesbian & Gay Film Festivals.
• COLAGE has published a first-of-its-kind Kids of Trans Resource Guide (PDF), written by and for kids of trans parents.
• The Ottawa Citizen ran an article last week profiling several children and adult children of LGBT parents. It’s a nice balance to all of the stories (important as they are) showing the smiling lesbian couples talking about finding sperm donors. It even includes children whose parents came out when they were teens and tweens, and a child who was adopted. “As a child of a gay person, you’re on the front line of homophobia even though you’re heterosexual,” says one interviewee, who also speaks of the difficulty of finding a place in the LGBT movement.

Also from up north is an article in Canada.com about explaining same-sex parents to children. The article is aimed at children of non-LGBT parents, but much is applicable to parents of any type explaining families, love, and (later) sexuality to their children. Among other things, it quotes Dr. Justin Richardson, author of Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They’d Ask), who says:

We’re hesitant because as adults we think that to talk about gay families is to talk about gay sex. Therefore parents are squeamish. I can promise you that while an adult might think of a gay couple and think of them having sex, a second grader will not think that abstractly. They’re just thinking that they’re two people in love who happen to be same sex—who aren’t that different from Mom and Dad.

Richardson is, of course, also the co-author of the same-sex penguin classic And Tango Makes Three.

Less Than a Week Until Blogging for LGBT Families Day

A gentle reminder that it’s now less than a week until Blogging for LGBT Families Day. Full details are here; the short version is: blog in support of LGBT families on or before June 2, and send me the link.

I’m already starting to see some posts trickle in; I’ll start posting the links on June 2 as soon as I get them, so if you want your link to appear all day as people visit, get it in as early as possible.

Please also download a banner and promote the event on your site. The more people who participate, the more impact our voices will have.

Here are a few frequently asked questions:

Do I need to be LGBT? No, just supportive.

Do I need to have kids? What about my cat? Define “family” as you will.

What if I always write about my LGBT family? Great! Just do what you normally do, and send me the link. Or write a special post for the occasion if you want to, but don’t feel obligated.

What if I never write about LGBT issues? If you want to say something in support of LGBT families, then this event gives you an excuse. Feel free to tie it into your regular blog theme, e.g., if you write about kids’ literature, write about an LGBT-inclusive kids’ book.

What if I want to share a photo or video? That’s fine. Post them on your blog or a photo or video sharing site. If you use a sharing site, make sure to set them to be public. Then send me the link.

What do I do if I don’t have a blog? If you don’t have a blog, you may also leave a comment on the master Blogging for LGBT Families Day post I will put up on June 2. If you only post on Facebook or MySpace, you may add me, Dana Rudolph, as a friend to notify me of a post there. (Here’s my Facebook page and my MySpace page. If you do a search for my name, though, make sure to look for the event banner image, as there are multiple Dana Rudolphs.) If you do have a regular blog, I much prefer that you post there, since then your post will be readable even by those who don’t have Facebook or MySpace accounts—and the whole point here is to share our posts.

Parents Share Stories of Biology, Community, Society

(Originally published in Bay Windows, May 22, 2008.)
Photo (L to R): Jarrett Barrios, David Trueblood, Rick Wellisch, Polly Crozier, Kelly Lawrence.

“You cannot figure out being a parent by yourself,” asserted David Trueblood, a gay dad and director of public relations for the Boston Foundation. He was speaking at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (CCAE) on May 14, as part of a panel designed to help LGBT parents and prospective parents figure it out together.

“CCAE has historically been a welcoming space for LGBT folks,” said the Center’s assistant director, Will McMillan. “This panel is simply a continuation of that spirit of inclusivity.” Some of the 30 or so people who attended were parents already, as was clear from the baby stroller parked in the back. Others were still in the planning phases, asking questions like, “How much does it cost to get pregnant?”

The panelists represented a range of family structures and experiences. Moderator Kelly Lawrence, a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney’s office and a biological mother, began by asking the panelists what parenting advice they wished they’d received. “God, why wasn’t I told about the teenage years?” said Jarrett Barrios, former state senator and now president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation. He is the father of two adopted boys, ages 12 and 16. Later, though, he reassured the audience: “I always have anxieties. I suspect you will, too. It’s completely normal.” All of the panelists spoke with a similarly candid tone. This was, however, no panel of parenting experts, although they were prominent for other reasons. These were parents who had simply been there before. Read the rest of this post »

Family Under Fire

(Reposting this in honor of Memorial Day. Originally published in Bay Windows, January 10, 2008)

Five-year-old William and three-year-old Ryan are the children of decorated U.S. Army officer Cheryl Parker. Like other children of service members, they have dealt with cross-country moves and months without their mother while she was deployed in Iraq. Unlike the others, however, they must forgo many benefits, conveniences and support services offered to military families, or risk revealing that they have another mother, Donna Lewis. This could lead to Parker’s dismissal under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, even in LGBT-friendly Massachusetts. (Note: Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the family.)

In the close-knit community of an army base, there is a strong chance the young children will inadvertently out their mothers. “When I tried to put William in on-base daycare,” explains Parker, “he would talk about having two moms. A lot of the daycare workers are spouses of military personnel. I don’t need somebody’s wife saying ‘What’s the deal with William Parker?’” The same applies to the other activities provided by the Army family centers, such as kiddie gym classes. “The questions start and then the lying begins, and it’s just too complicated.”

The couple is adamant, however, that however much they must lie to protect their family, they will never have their children do so. Lewis explains “We can’t take them to the commissary together anymore. One of the boys will say ‘Mom? Not you, my other mom.’ We can’t tell him ‘Don’t say that,’ because he’s going to say ‘Why?’ The best way to deal with it is just not to put them in that situation.”

The “situations” are often ones children would relish. “They had this humongous playground on one base that William absolutely loved,” says Lewis. “But if there were a lot of kids around, we couldn’t go, because he might say ‘That’s my mom, my other mom’s at home.’ That’s what kids do. They introduce themselves. If he was going to play by himself, which really sounds sad, then it was okay for him to go to the playground.” She adds, “He’s dying to play soccer, and they have on-base teams for younger kids. We have to find a team off base, away from the area. William can’t go to the swimming pool, he can’t go to movie day, the things other kids are allowed to do.” Read the rest of this post »

Weekly Political Roundup

• Just in time for Memorial Day, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a district court decision in the case of an Air Force major discharged for being a lesbian. It ruled “the government may only ‘intrude upon the personal and private lives of homosexuals’ to ‘advance an important governmental interest,’ such as maintaining troop readiness or improving morale.” This is the first time a federal appellate court has found that the military must meet a heightened standard when infringing on a gay service member’s right to privacy, says the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). The case has now been remanded to the district court for further action. The Ninth Circuit said the Lawrence v. Texas case that struck down sodomy laws also applies to the military and requires a “searching constitutional inquiry” when the military attempts to interfere in a service member’s intimate private life.
• SLDN warns, however, that despite California’s recent legalization of marriage for same-sex couple’s the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law requires “that a service member ’shall be separated from the armed forces’ if ‘the member has married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the same biological sex.’”.
• A federal marriage amendment may be back. Freshman U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) said he plans to introduce an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Read the rest of this post »

Author Seeks Couples for Sex Guide

(Oh, the search engines are going to have fun with this post. . . .)

Passing along this information; I’m not associated with the project, but I thought it might be of interest to some:

An invitation from Felice Newman, author of The Whole Lesbian Sex Book:

Lesbian, Bisexual & Queer Women Couples:

Have you been together for 5+ years?
Do you enjoy a satisfying sex life?
I’d like to hear from you: What makes your sexual relationship work?

Will you help me research a new sex guide for lesbian couples?
I am conducting confidential interviews (via telephone) with couples who enjoy a satisfying sexual relationship. I am interested in exploring the ways we “grow” our sexual partnerships. Read the rest of this post »