Del Martin on Fresh Air

NPR’s Fresh Air today broadcast an excerpt from an interview Terry Gross conducted with Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon back in 1992. It’s worth 12 or so minutes of your time to take in a little history and remember a pioneer of the LGBT-rights movement. (Terry Gross is one of those people I’ll listen to no matter who she’s interviewing, but doubly so if it’s someone of interest to me in the first place.)

Weekly Political Update

• Senator Barack Obama, in his speech to accept the Democratic nomination for president, said “I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.” Yes, he’s not endorsing full equality, but in my view, it is a huge step even to mention the issue in such a forum. It shows Obama’s skill in finding the common ground. He’s right: Americans don’t all agree on whether same-sex couples should marry—but he’s identifying a bridgehead on which to build.
• Sen. Barack Obama picked Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) as his running mate. Waymon at Bilerico has a quick rundown of Biden’s record on LGBT issues. Senator John McCain announced Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. Alex has more at Bilerico about Palin’s none-too-stellar record on LGBT rights and Victor has more at Pam’s.
• Bay Windows (among many other places) offers coverage of Days 3 and 4 of the Democratic National Convention. Read the rest of this post »

In the Life Showcases Classroom Diversity Film

I wrote last fall of the DVD release of It’s Elementary, a documentary by Academy Award-winning director Debra Chasnoff that shows how various teachers have addressed LGBT awareness in the classroom. The DVD also includes a companion piece, It’s STILL Elementary, which looks at why the film was made, people’s response, and the situation today. It’s a great resource for educators and parents, and deserves to be widely known.

I was pleased, therefore, to see that In the Life is devoting a segment of their September show to the film. View a trailer of the show or find out when it will air in your area. (Many PBS stations are carrying it.)

Back-to-School Hacks

Even though my own son won’t need any of these tips for a while, I’ve been impressed by Lifehacker’s long list of back-to-school hacks. Whether it’s Top 10 Back to School Tools for the Organized Student, ways to Raise Your GPA, or Best Places to Find Deals on Textbooks, if you have a child in college (or even high school), there’s bound to be something of interest here. Might even be useful for us parents directly, whether we’re doing continuing ed or organizing our business lives.

If you have school-age kids, what is your family doing to prepare for the start of the school year? We’re trying to get out to some fun local sites before our son starts kindergarten. Other than making sure he has clean socks for the first day, I think that’s about all we have to do at this grade.

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Week Off

We’re taking the week off from our “She Got Me Pregnant” vlog because of some family happenings. We hope to be back next Thursday with another episode.

In Memoriam: Del Martin

In June, I was happy to relate the news that two pioneers of the lesbian- and LGBT-rights movements, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, would be the first same-sex couple to marry legally in San Francisco. Today, I am saddened by the news of Martin’s death. She and Lyon had celebrated over 50 years together. Read the rest of this post »

Conventionitis

It’s convention season here in the U.S. The Democrats are having a party this week, with the Republicans to follow. I haven’t been covering the blow-by-blow, since the LGBT bloggers at Bilerico and Pam’s House Blend have been doing so with gusto, and with people actually at the convention to report first hand. Bay Windows is also publishing a series of on-the-spot reports by veteran journalist Lisa Keen. (Here are her Day 1 and Day 2 stories.)

I think it’s a tremendous sign of progress that Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) mentioned the gay community in a prime-time speech, saying: “Barack Obama will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, group against group, and straight against gay.” A passing reference, perhaps, but still a significant one. On a less televised but still important note, Michelle Obama attended the LGBT luncheon at the Convention. (As I understand it, her husband isn’t even there yet, so it’s not a matter of us getting the spouse while others got the candidate. She is in many ways his closest surrogate at the moment.)

I wonder, though, how many people outside the realm of political junkies are really following the convention antics? Hence this week’s poll:

Back-to-School BuddyG Giveaway

To celebrate the beginning of the school year, I’m having another contest to win a copy of BuddyG: My Two Moms and Me, the first fully animated show featuring a child of LGBT parents! Margaux Towne-Colley and Donna Colley, the women behind BuddyG, have offered a free copy to a Mombian reader, and they’re throwing in some temporary tattoos as well.

The DVD will go to the first person who leaves a comment with the correct answers to both of the following questions. Please note rules and restrictions below. Stay tuned for a different giveaway coming up soon!

The Democratic National Convention is this week, and the Republicans meet next week. In what year was the first Democratic National Convention held? In what year was the first Republican National Convention held?

You can read more about BuddyG in this post or view a clip of the theme song here.

Rules and restrictions: U.S. and Canada residents only, please. (The DVD is in Region 1 format, and will likely not play in other countries. Postal costs also make it prohibitive to ship elsewhere.) Don’t worry if your comment is moderated; once I approve it, it will appear based on the time you submitted it. I retain the right to cancel the giveaway if there are any nasty debates about who has the correct answers. Previous winners of Mombian contests cannot win again (though you can submit an answer just to see if you got it right). If you are or have been a paying advertiser on Mombian, you can’t play. If no one gets the right answers by 11:59 p.m. EST, September 2, 2008, I’ll post an alternate question.

Make sure to leave a valid e-mail address with your comment! (Don’t leave a postal address, though. If you win, I’ll contact you by e-mail about shipping.)

Documenting Kids of Queer Parents

(Originally published by After Ellen, July 16, 2008.)

Filmmaker Meema Spadola made Our House: A Very Real Documentary About Kids of Lesbian and Gay Parents, because it was the type of movie that didn’t exist when she was a child. “If I had been able to turn on the television and see a documentary or any kind of program about kids with other gay and lesbian parents,” she said, “that would have radically changed my life.”

Our House, first released in 2000, profiled five gay and lesbian families with teen or preteen children. It garnered numerous awards, including Best Documentary at both Newfest in New York and Outfest in Los Angeles. Now Spadola has re-released the film on DVD, along with bonus material that brings us up to date with her original subjects. Read the rest of this post »

Marriage and Parenthood: A Talk with Nancy Polikoff

(Originally published in Bay Windows (PDF link), July 24, 2008)

For many same-sex couples, one of the primary motivations for getting married is to gain legal protections for our children. Nancy Polikoff, professor of law at American University Washington College of Law, cautions us, however, that we should not tie parenthood and marriage too tightly. “For the last forty years,” she says, “the development of the law has been to equalize the status of children born to married and unmarried parents. . . . We were able to make enormous gains on behalf of same-sex parents and their children in that context, without marriage on the radar screen at all.”

While marriage should be an option for all, she believes, it should not be a requirement. Opposite-sex couples have their parental status protected whether or not they are married, she notes, and by and large their children turn out fine. Research has shown, too, that children of same-sex couples have also been doing well with unmarried parents. “That’s what we say in every custody case, that’s what we say every time somebody says we shouldn’t be able to adopt children.”

In Polikoff ’s Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law (Beacon, 2008), she further explores why marriage is not sufficient and should not be necessary to protect all families. She admits, however, that the book is “somewhat unusual” for her in that it focuses on couples and adult relationships and discusses parenting only as a subset of that.

She has spent most of her 30-year career, however, on issues specific to lesbian and gay parents and their children. In her last year of undergraduate work, 1972, she met the first person identified to her as a lesbian mother. The woman had just lost custody of her children after coming out and divorcing her husband. When Polikoff entered law school, her first law review article (published with Nan Hunter) was about lesbian mothers in custody cases. Her interest in the topic has never wavered, she says, although she has worked on other issues. Becoming a mother herself and watching many of her friends and colleagues doing the same has reinforced her commitment. Read the rest of this post »