Happy Father’s Day

A very happy Father’s Day to the few but loyal dads who read this blog, as well as to the lesbian moms who claim this day as their own.

A happy day, too, to my own father, who this year battled cancer for the third time and still managed to find time to tell superhero stories to our son. He has over the years lent his male expertise in the few instances when Helen and I needed such assistance, and helps prove that it’s not necessary for a child to have a father in order to have positive male role models. At the same time, he’s done all right in the fathering department, too, as my brother and I seem to have turned out well enough.

Thanks, Dad!

Visibility Matters: Scientific Proof

We’ve all heard that visibility matters. Here’s proof—scientific proof—as reported in Scientific American.

According to Harvard University psychologist Yoel Inbar and his colleagues in a recent issue of the journal Emotion, even people who say they are fine with displays of affection by gay male couples may harbor subconscious negative attitudes.

Jesse Bering, the openly gay author of the SciAm article and the director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland, explains: “because these implicit (often unconscious) moral judgments are often in conflict with social prescriptions of fairness and equality for gay couples, such individuals are usually completely unaware of their own prejudiced attitudes.”

The good news? Bering observes: Read the rest of this post »

Weekly Political Roundup

The big news this week is the LGBT community’s reaction to President Obama’s grant of limited benefits to partners of federal employees. Here’s my take on it. The Washington Blade has more analysis.

The news comes on the heels of Obama’s decision to defend a Department of Justice filing that supports DOMA. On that case, see Lisa Keen’s coverage in the Bay Area Reporter, in which she gets into the legal nitty-gritty. On the upcoming DOMA case filed by GLAD, see Wendy Kaminer’s piece in The Atlantic. The DOJ is expected to file a brief in the latter case by June 29. The fun has only just begun, it seems.

• The State Department will consider same-sex couples’ marriage licenses, if valid in their state of origin, as sufficient evidence for a name change on a passport.
• The White House said it was seeking ways to include marriages, unions, and partnerships of same-sex couples in 2010 Census data. The Wall Street Journal reports, “The administration has directed the Census Bureau to determine changes needed in tabulation software to allow for same-sex marriage data to be released early in 2011 with other detailed demographic information from the decennial count.”
• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) says she supports the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and will be among the original co-sponsors of the bill when it’s introduced.
• Diego Sanchez, a transgender senior policy adviser to U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) said Frank plans to introduce a revised version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) next week that will include protections based on gender identity as well as sexual orientation. Read the rest of this post »

Boston Pride 2009: The Mombian View

Here are a few select photos from this year’s Boston Pride, with a focus on family matters. Unfortunately, I got there too late to see most of the school groups that marched, since I was running over from Cambridge where I’d been covering the mayor’s annual Pride Brunch, but you can see last year’s set to get an idea.

I’ll spare you my umpteen other photos, since they’re probably of less interest to anyone else. I will say that the flavor of Boston Pride is increasingly mellow. We still have our dykes on bikes and drag queens, but the school groups, local politicians, corporate employee networks, and religious congregations seem to comprise the majority of marchers. The gay sports teams play tennis and volleyball over their banners, while the kids fall asleep in their strollers.

We’re here, we’re queer, and we look like America.

A few notes:

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 72

Helen and I share an inspiring story of high school students who stood up to hate. We then discuss the joys of smaller children’s museums, with some money-saving tips and hints for engaging the kids at museums of all types. We then end our Monday-night filming to go watch Weeds and Nurse Jackie, and promise to bring you more about the lesbian moms who will show up later in the season on the latter.

(If the embedded video above doesn’t work for you, try it here.)

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Swing High, Swing Low

What a day. My son is out of school for the summer, so I spent most of my time at the playground with him and a friend, watching them go up and down on the swings.

Recent national LGBT political news has been rather like that, too. It has gone something like this:

• President Obama is elected after promising to be a “fierce advocate” for LGBT rights. Early indications are promising, including many appointments of out LGBT individuals and the deliberate invitation of LGBT families to the White House Easter Egg Roll. Up.
• Last week, the administration chose to defend a Department of Justice filing that supports the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA.) Down.
• Yesterday, news broke that President Obama would be extending employee benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Up.
• The State Department will consider same-sex couples’ marriage licenses, if valid in their state of origin, as sufficient evidence for a name change on a passport. Up.
• The benefits for same-sex partners of federal workers will not include health or retirement benefits. (Earlier reports said the benefits would also expire when Obama leaves office, but that appears to be incorrect.) What does that leave? Here’s what:
  

  For civil service employees, domestic partners of federal employees can be added to the long-term care insurance program; supervisors can also be required to allow employees to use their sick leave to take care of domestic partners and non-biological, non-adopted children. For foreign service employees, a number of benefits were identified, including the use of medical facilities at posts abroad, medical evacuation from posts abroad, and inclusion in family size for housing allocations.

  Good as far as they go, but without health and insurance, the two biggest benefits for most people, this is: Down. Way down. You should also go read my spouse Helen’s post, If Barack Obama Was Gay, where she speculates on what today’s new benefits would mean for Barack and “Michael.”

• John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, clarified to Alex Blaze of Bilerico that the new regulations say only job-related factors will be considered in federal employment, which means both sexual orientation and gender identity will be non-work related factors. Up. Nice to see trans issues included.

What to make of all this? Read the rest of this post »

Is New Equality California Ad Aggressive Enough?

On the first anniversary of the legalization of marriage for same-sex couples in California—or at least for the 18,000 that managed to get hitched before November 5th of last year—Equality California has released a new ad featuring a pair of gay dads and their five kids. In November, I criticized the No On 8 campaign for failing to have included images of same-sex parents and their children in their ads before the election; it seems I was not the only one, and that someone has listened.

Still, one of the comments on the video’s YouTube page says the new ad below should have been more aggressive in showing how Prop 8 hurts families—or been more funny and memorable in the spirit of Stephen Colbert. What do you think?

Good News, Bad News

Lawyer Nancy Polikoff informs us of both good news and bad news this week:

First, the bad news: The Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal just ruled that lesbian mom Kimberlee Black is not entitled to joint custody of a child she co-raised for six years. Full custody will go to the child’s biological mother, Kimberly Simms. Polikoff notes that the child will also lose contact with her younger brother, Black’s biological child, and with her grandparents on Black’s side, with whom she and Black lived for two years.

In its ruling, the court said that Simms is the only mother, and has the right to full custody unless Black could prove it would cause “substantial harm” to the child. Although the court-ordered counselor testified that “it was really important that Braelyn have contact with both women,” whom she regarded as her two mothers, the counselor also admitted “a parent is not unfit because they decide that a child can no longer associate with a family friend that has been close to the family for years.” (emphasis Polikoff’s).

That’s right. “Family friend.” It sounds like that was a phrase used by Simm’s lawyer when he asked the question. I’m trying not to retch on my keyboard.

Now, the good news: The Georgia Supreme Court overturned a trial court order that gay dad Eric Mongerson could not exercise his visitation rights with his four children in the presence of his “homosexual partners and friends.” Sovo.com has more.