David Boies on Same-Sex Parents

His colleague Ted Olson got the parenting quote the other day. Now it’s David Boies’ turn, in an interview he and Olson did with Rachel Maddow (my bold):

There are three basic points that we want to make. One is that marriage is a fundamental right. Nobody can really disagree with that. The second is that gay and lesbian couples are seriously harmed when they are deprived of that right. It harms them, it harms the children that they’re raising and that they want to raise. . . . The third point is that allowing them to be married doesn’t hurt anybody.

The interview is worth watching in full, if only because of Maddow’s interesting reminder of the conservative roots of marriage equality.

LGBT Parenting Roundup

Politics and Law

• The government of New South Wales, Australia, has refused to change the law and allow same-sex couples to adopt, despite a six-month parliamentary inquiry that found doing so would be in the best interests of children. It says the issue is “too complex and sensitive” and there is not enough community support.
• Ultra-right sites are abuzz with the story of Karen Kelsky, who was just given permission to move from Illinois to Oregon with her children from a previous opposite-sex marriage. The right is upset because the children will be living in “the lesbian mecca of Portland, Oregon” with Kelsky and her new female partner.
• A Canadian lesbian couple has taken their known sperm donor to court after he began to visit more often then they had agreed and to refer to the child as his son. Killian Melloy’s article at the Edge is also interesting because of what it tells us about the differences in donor laws in Canada and the U.S. Canadian law does not permit men to be paid for sperm  donations, for example, so all but one of the nation’s sperm banks have closed. This means more lesbian couples use known donors.
• Sex & the City star Cynthia Nixon helped the ACLU of Florida kick off its campaign against the state’s ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians.

Personal Stories

• The Iowa Telegraph-Herald (via AP) has a nice story about lesbian moms Jeanne and Sheri Patton, who were the first same-sex couple to get married in the main sanctuary of First Christian Church in Des Moines. Jeanne mentions that ruling to permit marriage for same-sex couples did not authorize a new interpretation of the Iowa code to allow non-biological mothers married to biological mothers to put their names on their children’s birth certificates. That should be changed, of course—but most LGBT legal organizations recommend that non-bio mothers still get an adoption or court order for traveling out of state. (In the epic custody case of Janet Jenkins and Lisa Miller, Jenkins did not do a second-parent adoption of their daughter, because under Vermont law, the women’s civil union gave her parental rights. She had to fight for those rights when the state of Virginia got involved.) Read the rest of this post »

Prop 8: The Twinkie Offense

During the Prop 8 trial in California yesterday, plaintiff Paul Katami, a fitness manager, was asked why he didn’t think domestic partnerships were good enough. He replied with a metaphor of putting a Twinkie at the end of a treadmill and giving the person on the treadmill just one bite, reports Lisa Keen.

“I want that whole Twinkie,” Katami asserted.

There is of course a parallel here with the infamous “Twinkie defense” supposedly used by San Francisco supervisor Dan White during his trial for the murder of Harvey Milk. White’s lawyers implied that his high-sugar junk food diet may have exacerbated the depression that led to the murders. Subsequent coverage of the event made it sound more like the lawyers were arguing that his junk food consumption had led to a sugar-fueled rage; while not quite correct, the media played up the idea of a “Twinkie defense” and it stuck in the public mind.

Katami, in essence, is flipping things around and creating a “Twinkie offense.” I have to think this isn’t coincidental. Katami is a fitness instructor, and the idea of him wanting a Twinkie is a little unbelievable. Even if one grants him a junk food craving, he could have picked from any number of treats. Twinkies, however, have a special resonance in California gay history.

We’ll see if this trial gives them a better connotation.

(Image by Larry D. Moore, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License.)

Ted Olson on Same-Sex Parents

Attorney Ted Olson gave the plaintiffs’ opening statement in the Prop 8 trial yesterday. He said some spot-on things about same-sex couples and parenting (my bold):

Proposition 8 has no rational relation to the parenting of children because same-sex couples and opposite sex couples are equally permitted to have and raise children in California. The evidence in this case will demonstrate that gay and lesbian individuals are every bit as capable of being loving, caring and effective parents as heterosexuals. The quality of a parent is not measured by gender but the content of the heart. . . . Read the rest of this post »

LGBT-Inclusive Kids’ Music Hits a High Note

(Originally published with slight variation as my Mombian newspaper column.)

Nothing warms a gay or lesbian parent’s heart like seeing representations of our families in children’s media. Two new kids’ CD’s set those representations to music.

The first, The Super Secret Seashell Cave, is an audio-only album by the team that produced Dottie’s Magic Pockets, the first live-action DVD for kids with lesbian and gay parents and their friends. (See my review of the DVD here.) Seashell brings back the fun-loving cast of the DVD, including lesbian-mom Dottie and her puppet friends, to take children on a musical adventure in search of the eponymous cave. Along the way, they meet new friends, including a squeaky squirrel, a beetle with two moms, and a monkey adopted by a baboon.

Creator and writer Tammy Stoner developed the storyline from a tale she made up for her own six-year-old son. There is little specifically “about” lesbian or gay families in it, although there are clear gay and lesbian characters. In this way, however, the album avoids the pedantry of Suzi Nash’s Rainbow Sprinkles, an earlier (2005) CD for kids with lesbian and gay parents, which includes lines like, “It doesn’t matter that my moms are gay/’Cause they’re the best in town.’” Rather than feeling like a “special” album for kids of gay and lesbian parents that still sets them apart, Seashell feels like what the whole next generation of children’s music should sound like—inclusive, fun, and revealing of the society around us. Read the rest of this post »

Lesbian Mom Headlining Prop 8 Trial

Kris Perry is the titular plaintiff in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger case challenging the constitutionality of Prop 8. She and her partner Sandy Stier have four boys. Perry told journalist Karen Ocamb recently:

Sandy and I have both been active members of PTA and sit on education fundraising boards. We go to our kids’ athletic events. We got to school conferences. That’s what we do. It’s so much like other families.

Joining Perry and Stier as plaintiffs are Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, who have no human children but do have two French bulldogs and a cat.

As I mention in my article at Keen News Service, the pro-Prop 8 defense has compiled a long list of research on marriage and families to use in the case. While some comes from dubious sources, much seems legitimate. They even cite well-regarded studies such as the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (see my interview with lead investigator Dr. Nanette Gartrell) and work by Dr. Abbie Goldberg (about whom see here).

How will they use this material? Stay tuned as the case unfolds.

How Prop 8 Defenders May Justify Marriage Ban: Harvey Milk, Blackwater, and Aborigines

The big Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial, aka the Prop 8 trial, begins today in California. My piece looking at some of the items the defense might use to justify Prop 8 is up at Keen News Service.

If you want a refresher on what the case is all about, Lisa Keen’s latest article is a good one. (And although I’m writing for her, she’s not paying me to say that.) Every other major LGBT news site has coverage as well.

Lisa has a rare press pass to be in the courtroom itself during the trial, so I hope you’ll stay tuned to her site (and her Twitter feed) for daily updates.

Weekly Political Roundup

• Amanda Simpson started work as as Senior Technical Advisor in the Bureau of Industry and Security, becoming one of the first transgender people to receive a presidential appointment to an executive branch post. Dylan Orr, who began work in December as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Labor Kathleen Martinez, was the first.
• California Assemblyman John Pérez (D-Los Angeles) received the Assembly’s official vote to become its next speaker and the body’s first openly gay leader.
• Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker approved the video recording of California’s Prop 8 trial that will begin Monday, but only for delayed release on YouTube, not live broadcast. Proposition 8 supporters then asked him to put the trial on hold while they appeal the order to allow the broadcast.
• New Hampshire began allowing same-sex couples to marry on January 1. Not surprisingly, the right-wing is already starting up efforts to repeal marriage equality there and in Iowa.
• The New Jersey state Senate voted down a bill to legalize marriage for same-sex couples. Garden State Equality immediately said they would go back to the courts to fight for it.
• The Rhode Island House and Senate voted to override Gov. Donald Carcieri’s veto of a bill giving domestic partners the right to claim the bodies of and make funeral arrangements for their partners.

Around the World:

• The Iranian military will no longer classify transgender people as “people with mental disorders.” Under the new regulations, however, they will be classified either as “people with hormonal imbalance” or “diabetics.”
• Two Malawian men who married in a non-legal wedding were arrested on charges of gross public indecency.
• Portugal’s parliament passed a law to legalize marriage for same-sex couples, but shied away from allowing same-sex couples to adopt.
• Although the Ugandan government was apparently looking for a way of withdrawing a virulently anti-gay bill, but the lawmaker who proposed it says he will refuse any request to do so.