Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. I’m posting this a wee bit early this month because I’m on vacation; you can usually find Erin Lee and Marci here at their regular time, the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org. (Catch them on the R Family cruise this summer, too!)

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to Amazon MP3 downloads for those who want only the singles. (Click the song name.)

One of our favorite things is a song that tells a story. Often we write our songs because someone has told us a really good tale. That was the case with Elm Avenue Waltz, when our friend Phil told us about a cranky neighbor that all the kids in his neighborhood used to whisper about. Once, a kid lost a football in her yard – and when he went to retrieve it, he found that she had sliced the ball open with a big kitchen knife! After that, everyone was afraid to go in her yard, and if someone accidentally threw a ball there, it was considered lost. Well, as soon as we heard his story we had to write a song.

So, this month’s music recommendations feature a certain type of song rather than a topic. We don’t know what prompted Steve Weeks or Monty Harper to write their story songs – we hope that Steve wasn’t plagues by monkeys, and we certainly hope that Monty wasn’t kidnapped by aliens. But we do hope that you enjoy listening to these stories! Read more »

Publishing this early because of my vacation schedule; I’ll catch late-Friday news next week.

• The U.S. House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on workplace discrimination against transgender people, “the first ever hearing in Congress exclusively on transgender issues.” HRC has coverage here and here and here.
• Bilerico’s Alex Blaze has compiled an intriguing collection of media comments that seek to portray Barack Obama as effeminate, and therefore weak and unfit for office. Alex writes: “It’s the adult equivalent of calling someone a fag on the schoolyard. It’s not that they think Obama’s actually into the same-sex lovin’, they just want you to know that he’s just not right, he’s weak, he’s just so… gay.” A good look at media bias.
• Presidential candidate John McCain announced his support for an amendment to the California constitution that would ban marriage of same-sex couples. He also held secret meetings with the Log Cabin Republicans. Michelle Obama, wife of his rival Barack Obama, will give the keynote address at the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council gala in New York this week. (Thanks, PageOneQ.)

Read more »

Kermit Love, the costume designer who helped Jim Henson create Big Bird, has died at age 91. He is survived by his partner of 50 years, Christopher Lyall.

Love built the Big Bird costume based on designs by Henson, and also helped design costumes and puppets for Snuffleupagus, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster, among others. The New York Times has more.

Big Bird has always been one of my favorite Sesame Street characters. He is to me the emotional heart of the show, everyone’s sympathetic friend. Actor Carroll Spinney deserves credit for bringing Big Bird to life, but Love gave him an appearance that made him an instantly recognizable icon.

What’s your favorite Big Bird skit or song?

A Mombian look at Boston Pride 2008:

Sure, there were drag queens and dykes on bikes, too, but I think they were outnumbered by the schools and church groups. Not that that’s necessarily good or bad; just a sign of change. Besides, I’m sure no small number of them had children in the schools and organizations shown above, as well.

LGBT advocates in the U.K. are urging supporters to boycott Heinz products after the company pulled an ad that showed two men kissing. The TV spot for Heinz Deli Mayo, “Mayo with a New York Deli Flavor,” shows two siblings getting ready for school and asking their mum for their lunches. Thing is, their “mum” is a man with a gruff New York accent, dressed as a New York deli worker. Their male dad then comes in and kisses mum goodbye.

The understated humor of the ad works well. It’s the incongruity of the New Yorker in the British household that makes me laugh. I’m not the only one who sees the same-sex relationship here as incidental: GLAAD reports (citing the U.K.’s Guardian) “the agency said the concept behind the campaign is that the product tastes so good, ‘It’s as if you have your own New York deli man in your kitchen,’ and the ad was not intentionally meant to represent same-sex parents.”

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, however, ranted about how gay (and therefore offensive) it was. The ultra-conservative American Family Association (AFA) sent out an action alert urging supporters to protest to Heinz about the ad. (Why the American Family Association should care so much about an ad in the U.K. is a mystery to me.)

Looks like the conservatives are going to have to play ketchup, though. U.K. Gay News says that an online petition to reinstate the ad has nearly 4,800 signatures, vs. the 202 complaints received by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Still, AFA’s Randy Sharp told CNN the ad was “an attempt to advance the homosexual lifestyle in the United Kingdom.” Yep, that lifestyle of making sandwiches for our kids is clearly a threat to civilization.

If the ad is going to advance anything, though, it’s our waistlines. The spot already carries an “ex-kids” restriction that prevents it from being shown during children’s programming, because it breaks television advertising rules for products that are high in fat, salt and sugar. I’ll agree with that kind of limitation. If O’Reilly and the AFA really want to help the youth of the world, they’d be better off promoting good eating habits rather than trying to ban depictions of loving families. Now there’s a thought to relish.

TiVo has responded to pressure from the LGBT community and allies and taken steps to distance itself from ultra-conservative group Focus on the Family (FOF), according to the Family Equality Council (FEC). (See my earlier post on the subject.) In an e-mail to supporters, FEC executive director Jennifer Chrisler reports: Read more »

(This was a bit of local coverage I did for Bay Windows, but I think it may be of interest to anyone interested in the history of social justice movements and the interaction among various progressive groups.)

Twenty years ago, when the first Gay-Straight Alliance was created, with the goal of making schools safer for students regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression, no one would have predicted it would be the beginning of a national movement encompassing 4000 high schools and middle schools in North America. Conservatives were enjoying a run in the White House and progressives everywhere were on the defensive. The Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth began in 1992, however, under Republican Gov. William Weld, and the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Student Rights Law passed in 1993.

Michael Connelly, director of Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute, wanted to explore this paradoxical history of the Safe Schools movement. He teamed with The History Project to launch a yearlong initiative that includes panel discussions, an oral-history course, a study guide, and an upcoming Web site. As part of this project, on June 3, four panelists and a knowledgeable audience at Wheelock College addressed the question of what other social-justice movements can learn from the success of Safe Schools. Read more »

When I had the pleasure of interviewing Meema Spadola, director and producer of Our House: Kids of Gay and Lesbian Parents, she mentioned a little LGBT-inclusive children’s book that had slipped under my radar: Everywhere Babies, by Susan Meyer and illustrated by Marla Frazee.

The book shows images of babies of many shapes, sizes, ethnicities, and family structures being fed, dressed, played with, and generally doing what babies do. It’s not LGBT-specific, but includes pictures of two-mom and two-dad families, making it a great book for families of all types. It’s very simple, and best to be read to toddlers—but I’m finding my five-year-old is revisiting a bunch of his baby books as he himself is learning to read, so don’t count it out if your kids are older.

Despite my earlier qualms, it looks like I will be online this week. I’m sitting here in the middle of King’s Canyon National Park in California, in the common room of the rustic John Muir Lodge, rough-hewn beams overhead, with six other people and their laptops, all taking advantage of the free WiFi. Gotta love the National Park Service. (Another part of me, though, would rather be off in the woods with nothing but a pocketknife, a bandanna, and a bottle of water.)

On a parenting note: If you’re going to be visiting a national park and have children over five, check out the Junior Ranger program. Kids complete a self-guided set of activities based on age range (pick up a booklet at the visitor centers) to earn their Junior Ranger badges. They learn about the wildlife, the parks themselves, and protecting our natural resources. Our son is totally excited about doing this—and I recall from seeing other kids get their badges that the rangers try to make a big deal out of the presentation.

On a political note: Sunday, Helen and I went to the After Ellen meet-up in San Francisco’s Castro district, and hung out in a gay bar with a bunch of cool lesbians. Monday, on the road out here to the park from Fresno, we passed a church with a “God Made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” sign out front. It’s going to be one long, hard slog until November, folks, even if the competition lacks originality.

Julieta Bonazza and Analía Puntillo of In Tristitia Hilaris, In Hilaritate Tristis and Florencia Gemetro and Gabriela Bacin of Maternidades Lesbicas were kind enough to write a guest post for Mombian about lesbian parenting in Argentina. ¡Muchas gracias! Many thanks!

Becoming parents as a project for lesbian couples is relatively new in Argentina. Our families are still not recognized by the law, adoption is practically impossible and if we actually get to adopt only one of the two moms would be legally recognized as such. Since there aren’t any regulations regarding access to assisted reproduction it’s possible for us to have kids by these means even though the only legal mother is the one that carries the baby.

Legal matters aside, last year we started a process to organize us as a group of lesbian moms and lesbian moms to be. The initiative is incipient but very promising. We get together periodically and are still getting to know each other while exchanging experiences and thinking how to take action to protect our kids. Read more »