Whether You Like Gulls or Buoys, You Can Marry in Maine

What a week to be taking time away from blogging. I’m breaking my self-imposed absence, however, to pop in and say, “Go, Maine!” Governor John E. Baldacci today signed marriage equality into law.

In the governor’s news release, he said, “In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”

The game isn’t over yet, however. As Ellen Andersen reminds us over at Bilerico, opponents of equality still have the opportunity to try and gather enough signatures to force a suspension of the law until a referendum can be held.

Next door in New Hampshire, however, the House also just voted in favor of a marriage equality bill, following the Senate’s approval. The bill now goes to the Granite State’s governor.

Will he be influenced by his neighbor’s move to equality? That remains an open question, as does whether California’s Supreme Court justices care at all about the groundswell of equality happening out east. That decision should happen any moment now. . . .

Where is the tipping point, I wonder, when enough states pass marriage equality laws that not to have some form of consistent federal and state-to-state recognition becomes an administrative nightmare?

One thing is certain: Forty years after the Stonewall riots began the LGBT-rights movement, we have ourselves another milestone year.

Cambridge Welcoming Ministries honors a “Reconciling Saint”

(Originally published in Bay Windows, April 16, 2009. I wrote it as coverage for a local event, but I think it has broad interest, especially in light of a recent ruling by the Judicial Council, the highest court of the United Methodist Church, which said clergy may not officiate at marriages of same-sex couples, even in states where the marriages are legal.

For the record, I’m not Methodist myself, nor even particularly religious, but I feel it is important to recognize that there is no necessary divide between the LGBT community and communities of faith, and the two may even overlap.)

“The church was divided because people felt that it was right to discriminate against people because of their race,” says retired United Methodist Bishop Melvin G. Talbert. “That changed over the years. I think just as race was a civil rights issue, [LGBT rights are] a civil rights issue in the church, and someday we will get to the point of saying how foolish it is for us to keep fighting over this issue.”

Cambridge Welcoming Ministries (CWM), a United Methodist community that openly includes and supports the LGBT community, has named Talbert their 2009 “Reconciling Saint,” an honor he will receive on April 19.

“Our reconciling saint embodies the qualities of a faithful believer who’s passionate, courageous, caring, audacious, and dedicated to a vision of a fully inclusive church,” said Pastor Tiffany Steinwert. “Bishop Talbert is someone whose entire life and ministry has been dedicated to ensuring both the full participation and the equal rights of people on the margins, and in many different ways. Bishop Talbert was a tireless advocate for civil rights, and it was a natural leap for him to also work for the LGBT community in doing that.” Read the rest of this post »

How Motherhood Earned Me a Free Sex Toy

[While I'm taking a bit of a break this week, please enjoy this guest post by Paige Schilt. Paige is a dyke mama, an activist, a low-femme nerd, and a part-time professor of Feminist Studies. She is also a contributing writer at The Bilerico Project. —DR]

When I was pregnant with my son, I heard a comedienne talking about the aftereffects of childbirth:

“I’m peeing all the time. I’m actually peeing right now,” she said.

That will never happen to me, I told myself.

I was in denial—the kind of deep, pre-delivery denial that ensures the continuation of the species. This maternal defense mechanism sustained several calming delusions. I believed that my partner and I would take a pleasant walk during the early stages of labor. I believed that I would not beg for drugs. And I believed that my intimate geography would not be forever reconfigured into Frankenpuss.

Once my son was born, however, I had plenty of other things on my mind. The war in Iraq had just started. There was an anti-marriage amendment on the ballot in my state. Also, there was this new little person in my life, and his every coo and sigh was mesmerizing.

So it took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I had a pee problem. Read the rest of this post »

Make Way for Lesbian Swans

The city of Boston today celebrates the Nineteenth Annual Return of the Swans to the Public Garden, the park captured in the childhood classic Make Way for Ducklings. A parade will be held in their honor as the swan pair, Romeo and Juliet, return to the Garden from their winter home at a nearby zoo.

Why should anyone aside from Bostonians care? Because Romeo and Juliet are actually a pair of females who laid eggs and attempted to care for them together, as the Boston Globe reported, and I discussed, a few years back. The eggs were unfertilized, alas, and there was no friendly keeper like And Tango Makes Three‘s Mr. Gramzay to give them a viable egg to hatch.

The official announcement from the mayor’s office this year about the swan ceremony is coy about their gender, doing the “no pronoun” dance that so many of us know so well. A missed opportunity to attract marrying same-sex couples to our state to wed, I say. We’ve got competition now.

If you happen to be visiting Boston over the summer, however, take your kids to the Public Garden to see the Make Way for Ducklings statue and ride the Swan Boats, while you take photos of the “lesbian swans.” (There’s also an enormous wading pool and a playground at nearby Boston Common.)

Taking a Short Break

I’m taking a short blogging break this week, so posts will be light. I have a few things set to publish automatically (so do stop by), but I will likely not be doing much in terms of breaking news. (This means, of course, that the California marriage decision will likely happen this week, because that’s just the way these things usually work, isn’t it?) Comment moderation will be slow, although if you’ve left an approved comment before, it should be posted right away, WordPress gods willing.

Thanks! See you next week!

Songs about Grandparents from Erin Lee and Marci

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’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to Amazon MP3 downloads, when available, for those who want only the singles. (Click the song name.) I also have a widget after the jump that will let you preview all three songs without leaving Mombian. (I’m of the opinion that the Amazon screwup last month was indeed a screwup, but unintentional on the part of the corporation. See the statements from the Lambda Literary Foundation and prolific lesbian author and publisher Patricia Nell Warren.)

The very first children’s song Erin Lee wrote was “Grampa & Me.” We were doing a show to celebrate Grandparents’ Day, and for some strange reason almost every book, poem and song that we found featured gentle, patient, country-living, garden-growing grandparents. Now, of course, there are many wonderful grandparents out there who are just like that—but Erin Lee’s Grampa wasn’t one of them. He used to stand on his head until things fell out of his pockets, and whatever treasure fell out, she got to keep. And Marci’s Grampa used to cut her hair (not as a profession, but for fun—badly). Grandparents, just like families, come in all shapes, colors, sizes . . . and speeds. So here are some songs celebrating all sorts of Grandparents! Read the rest of this post »

Weekly Political Roundup

Another week of political milestones:

• The Hate Crimes Bill, aka the Matthew Shepard Act, aka the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed the House. It would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the categories covered by federal hate crimes laws. The bill now moves to the Senate. President Obama has expressed his support.
• Could Stanford Law School professor and out lesbian Kathleen Sullivan be a contender for the U.S. Supreme Court?
• Is the GOP rethinking its stance on marriage equality? Or are they just desperate for support?
• A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows increasing support for marriage equality. Forty-nine percent said it should be legal versus 36 percent three years ago. Read the rest of this post »

Lesbian Poet Laureates Galore

With the naming of Carol Ann Duffy as the new British Poet Laureate, both Britain and the United States have lesbians holding the title. In July 2008, Kay Ryan was named by the Library of Congress as the 16th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

Ryan and her partner Carol Adair “married twice – once at San Francisco City Hall in 2004, the second time at the Marin Civic Center in 2008, on the same day Ryan learned she had been named U.S. poet laureate. They were together for 30 years,” reported the Marin Independent when Adair died in January 2009.

Duffy is the first lesbian mom to hold the Poet Laureate title, however—and the first woman. She in fact left the decision about whether to take the position up to her 13-year-old daughter, reports the AP (via 365gay.com), who urged her to do so because she would be the first woman. She says that even in her new public role, she will continue to protect her privacy and her daughter, the Advocate reports. (Neither the Advocate nor 365gay.com seem to have noticed the dual lesbian poet laureates, however.)