Happy Hanukkah!

A very happy first night of Hanukkah to those of you observing it. If your family comes from multiple traditions, like mine, then I wish you joy as you light up the first of the red noses on eight reindeer statues, have some latkes with eggnog, or do whatever you do to honor and celebrate your interwoven diversity in this season of miracles and light.

Obvious but Needed Research: Children of Lesbian Families Happy and Healthy

The National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), the longest-running and largest investigation of its kind, has published two new reports, in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry and Journal of Lesbian Studies. I gave Mombian readers a sneak peek at the results in my interview with Dr. Nanette Gartrell, the lead investigator, in August.

Bottom line? From the Journal of Lesbian Studies come the “should be obvious, but we’re glad to have research to back it” results:

No significant differences were found in the psychological adjustment of children in the present study and their age-matched peers in a U.S.-population sample. Homophobia had a negative impact on the well-being of children who experienced it. Attending schools with LGBT curricula and their mothers’ participation in the lesbian community were found to protect children against the negative influences of homophobia.

The Journal of Orthopsychiatry paper looks beyond the U.S. and compares children of lesbian families in the U.S. and the Netherlands. The findings?

Results showed that Dutch children were more open about growing up in a lesbian family,
experienced less homophobia, and demonstrated fewer emotional and behavioral problems than American children. Homophobia was found to account for part of the difference in psychosocial adjustment between the Dutch and the American children.

For the moment, I’ll have to settle for making my son some hot chocolate out of Dutch cocoa and watching the snow come down here in Massachusetts. Happy weekend, all!

Weekly Political Roundup

• Dominating LGBT news this week was Barack Obama’s choice of evangelical minister Rick Warren to give the invocation on Inauguration Day. Warren supported California’s Prop 8, but his homophobia (not to mention his anti-choice stance on abortion) mean his conservatism goes much deeper. Pam Spaulding notes wisely that the Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery, who will deliver the benediction, is a “civil rights giant” who “will erase the sad bigotry of Rick Warren.” We can only hope.
• The Bush administration issued a new rule that allows federal health officials to cut off federal funding for any government or health entity if they do not allow employees to refuse to provide services that they feel violate their personal, moral or religious beliefs, e.g., reproductive services to lesbians or other unmarried women, hormone prescriptions for transgender people, abortions, or birth control.
• Arne Duncan, the Chicago school superintendent whom President-elect Barack Obama picked as education secretary, supported a proposal this year for a Chicago public high school geared to LGBT students, reports the Advocate. Steve Ralls of PFLAG notes at HuffPo that Duncan “has been attuned to the pervasiveness of homophobic bullying and harassment and its negative impact on students, families and personnel who are or are perceived to be LGBT. He has been a proponent of organizing and professional development efforts in support of Safe Schools initiatives, too.” Read the rest of this post »

Loving Families: An Idea for Change

I recently received an invitation to submit an “Idea for Change in America” at Change.org, a social network for social change. The concept behind this campaign is to collect “Top 10 Ideas for America” that Change.org will present to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day. They then plan to build a national campaign with their many national partner organizations and members to advance each idea in Congress.

There were many ideas I could have submitted, but I chose to stick with a basic one close to my heart: All children deserve loving families. Here’s what I said:

Every child in America deserves a loving family. The rights of children to find a loving home through adoption or fostering shall not be withheld on account of the prospective parent’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. An adult in a committed relationship with the sole legal parent of a child, whom the legal parent acknowledges as a second parent, shall be recognized under the law as such, even if the two parents later separate. Furthermore, the relationship of a parent to a child, if recognized by a state or jurisdiction, shall be recognized by all states and jurisdictions.

If you like the idea, please vote it up! It’s already catching some flak from those who feel a traditional man-woman family is best for children. You can also click the image to grab the widget for your own site. Thanks!

New Bush Regs Could Limit Health and Reproductive Services for Lesbians and Other LGBT People

The Bush administration today issued a new rule that allows federal health officials to cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, clinic, health plan, doctors’ office or other entity if they do not allow employees to exercise their “right of conscience.” This means employees can refuse to help provide services that they feel violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs, e.g., reproductive services to lesbians or other unmarried women, abortions, or birth control. Autumn Sandeen over at Pam’s also noted when these regs were first proposed that they could also limit the ability of transgender people to get hormone prescriptions.

The Washington Post reports that the new regulations would apply to more than 584,000 health care facilities. As lawyer Nancy Polikoff said in an earlier post, this rule would “[cover] millions of workers who now can impose their ideas of who should be a parent, even in the face of state laws—like those in California—banning discrimination.”

WaPo notes, “Although the Obama administration could reverse the rule, it would require a lengthy process. Last month, however, Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced a bill to repeal the regulation legislatively.”

Sounds like we should start writing to our members of Congress even now. (Heck, send ‘em one of your holiday cards. One with a photo of your family on it.)

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 53

Over a glass of holiday “vlog nog,” Helen and I take a detour from parenting talk to examine an article in the latest issue of Cosmo titled, “Angelina Did it. So Did Lindsay. What It’s Like to Love a Girl.” We also note the strange convergence of Cosmo fashion trends and lesbian style. Moving back to parenting, we discuss past and present lesbian moms on ER, a new pair of gay penguin parents, recent court rulings related to lesbian moms, and a cheap but fun kid craft involving a pizza box and duct tape.

Phew. That’s a lot. It will have to hold you until after the holidays, though, since we’ll be taking a vlog break for two weeks now.

Watch Mombian: She Got Me Pregnant, 12-18-08 in Family Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

(If the Veoh video above doesn’t work, try it at Dailymotion.)

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Gifts for LGBT Parents and Our Kids

(Originally published in Bay Windows, December 11, 2008.)

LGBT parents or our kids on your holiday list? For the most part, mainstream gift guides will work just fine. Not everything we own has to be rainbow colored, and our kids already have three “I love my mommies” t-shirts each. If you do want something with a little more of an LGBT-family slant to add to the mix, though, here are some recommended books and DVDs from the past year: Read the rest of this post »

A Season of Thanks

(Originally published in Bay Windows, November 26, 2008)

It is supposed to be a time to give thanks, but the news is getting grim. Papers are carrying stories about children of same-sex parents worried that their families will fall apart in the wake of California’s Prop 8, and children who fear the Arkansas ban on unmarried foster and adoptive parents will mean they are taken from their homes. These children live across the country, not just in the places affected by the bans. If people can do this in one state, they figure, they can do it in another. The sponsors of Prop 8, ostensibly concerned with the best interests of the children, never thought of ours.

The repercussions of intolerance go further. A lesbian mom in Fresno, California has been forced to resign as president of the parent-teacher association at her son’s Catholic school after she went to a No On Prop 8 vigil. Two lesbian moms in Oshawa, Canada, were attacked outside their six-year-old son’s school in early November, with the son watching, in what police are calling a hate crime.

At this point in time, then, what can we as LGBT parents be thankful for? Read the rest of this post »

March of the Penguins Becoming a Pride Parade

Two weeks ago, I posted about the pair of male penguins in China who were trying to steal other penguins’ eggs in an attempt to become parents. Now, at the urging of zoo visitors, zookeepers have given them a hand: “We decided to give them two eggs from another couple whose hatching ability had been poor and they’ve turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo,’ said one of the keepers. (Thanks, Good As You.)

Nice to see them following in Silo and Roy’s waddling footsteps. Their offspring will have to get together with Tango and form HOLAGE: Hatchlings of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere. (Apologies to COLAGE.)

I’m thinking that Join the Impact’s next action should be to organize a way for people to send stuffed toy penguins to various groups on the right.

New York Recognizes Non-Bio Parents

Nothing like a woman about to have a baby to spur people into action. New York State officials have been pondering the many ways they need to carry out Gov. David Paterson’s directive that state agencies respect out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples.

New York residents Carolyn Trzeciak and Nina Sheldon Trzeciak, who married in Canada in 2006, and are expecting their first child, decided to move things along and sued the state last month, asking that both their names be placed on their child’s birth certificate when s/he is born. On Friday, the state Health Department agreed, saying “it had been exploring how to apply Paterson’s directive to birth certificates for some time, but arranged a quick resolution for the couple because the baby was expected as soon as Friday.” (Hmm. Perhaps I should have named this post “Lesbian Moms, Stat!“) Read the rest of this post »