Songs to Keep You Going 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.

Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album 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 most of the songs without leaving Mombian.

Have you ever done something that you wished you hadn’t done? Or has something ever happened to you that you wish never happened? There are some things that you just can’t make go away or pretend didn’t happen…but what you do NEXT can make all the difference between a terrible day and a happy ending.

The characters in these songs keep on going when things get tough, scary, or just plain embarrassing. They turn difficult situations into happy endings through bravery, perseverance, and sometimes just a good sense of humor. Read the rest of this post »

The Kids Are All Right: Interviews and Openings

I’m pleased to see coverage of The Kids Are All Right popping up all over the media. (My own review is here.) I wanted to highlight a couple of interviews with director Lisa Cholodenko and many in the cast, including Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Josh Hutcherson, and Mia Wasikowska.

Below is comedian Bridget McManus doing the interviews for After Ellen. I particularly like how Moore says she and Bening brought their real-life experience as moms to their roles.

After the jump is the Advocate’s similar session.

I hope either or both of these clips will convince you (if my own review didn’t) that the whole “lesbian has an affair with a man” subplot stays far away from the dreaded “all a lesbian needs is a man” myth. Really. Go see this film. Happily, it will be opening at more theaters across the country soon—here’s a list.

Read the rest of this post »

Weekly Political Roundup

• Big, huge victories against DOMA lead the news for the week, as already mentioned.
• The battle against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is getting even more interesting as two groups for LGBT servicemembers issue conflicting advice about whether to complete the Pentagon’s survey about DADT. Read the rest of this post »

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 110

Helen and I discuss the delightful geekiness of the new Lego Harry Potter Wii game. I also share a book about being a nonbiological mother—and we then discuss why the bio/nonbio distinction doesn’t fit for us, even though we did not adopt. Helen also shares a book that she hopes will help her figure out adolescent boys and what it means to be a man.

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

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Breaking: Huge Marriage Equality Victories

In two separate cases today, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional.

In less than an hour, I’m sure, you won’t be able to swing a virtual cat in the LGBT blogosphere without hitting an article about this. To get you started, here’s Lisa Keen’s coverage, which lays out the legal arguments nicely for us non-lawyers; GLAD’s page about their case, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management (argued by Mary Bonauto, who first won marriage equality in Massachusetts back in 2004) and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley’s statement in her case, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services.

Both cases will proceed to the U.S. Court of Appeals—but this is nonetheless an important first step.

Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling in the Proposition 8 case in California is still pending, but could happen any day now.

Photo: Banner in Cambridge, Mass. City Hall. ©2009 Dana Rudolph

The Kids Are All Right: The Perfect Lesbian Mom Date Movie

(The Kids Are All Right opens in select theaters tomorrow, and in wider release soon thereafter. My short review: Go see this film. My longer review, which first appeared in Bay Windows, is below.)

I was a skeptic. When I first heard of The Kids Are All Right, a film about a pair of lesbian moms whose kids go in search of their sperm donor—only to have one of the moms start an affair with him—I had a major eyeball-rolling moment. I feared the film would convey that a lesbian really just needs a man, that children need a father figure, or that children of donor insemination are in some way deprived of an essential connection in their lives.

My fears were unwarranted. Director Lisa Cholodenko (who shares writing credit with Stuart Blumberg) has deftly avoided these pitfalls and given us one of the most believable and positive fictional portrayals of a lesbian family I’ve ever seen. Cholodenko accomplishes this by keeping the focus on the universals of human relationships, not—despite the plot premise—on how lesbian families are “different” from others. Read the rest of this post »

What the New Lesbian Parenting Study Really Tells Us

I wrote a month ago about new results from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) that showed the teen children of lesbian parents were happy, healthy, and in many cases better adjusted than their peers.

The results spawned the usual spate of articles shouting that lesbian parents are better, or even implying that dads are not necessary for any child. I took umbrage with all that over at Change.org.

Heidi Stevens of the Chicago Tribune also saw through the nonsense, and wrote an article discussing how it’s not really about sexual orientation or gender—it’s about good parenting. She also cites some positive studies about opposite-sex couples and the increased role of dads in their kids’ lives. Smart stuff, and worth a read.

How Marriage Bans Teach Children Marriage Isn’t Necessary

(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.)

Parenting took center stage in the closing arguments of the Prop 8 case on June 16. Attorney Ted Olson, by most accounts, made a superb argument for marriage equality. There was one point he left out, however, that is worth exploring here.

Attorney Charles Cooper, speaking for the defenders of the same-sex marriage ban, argued that marriage should be limited to opposite-sex couples in order to “channel naturally procreative sexual conduct into stable and enduring unions,” and “to minimize what I would call irresponsible procreation.”

He was unclear, however, as to how allowing same-sex couples to marry would dissuade opposite-sex couples from doing the same. He spoke only of the “very important and very negative social implications” when children “are born into the world without this stable, enduring marital union, raised and responsibility taken for the offspring by both of the parents that brought them into the world.”

Olson did a stellar job refuting Cooper’s claim. He pointed out Cooper’s lack of evidence about the impact of same-sex marriages on opposite-sex ones, and noted that nearly 40,000 children in California were living in households headed by same-sex couples. “The evidence was uncontradicted during this trial and overwhelming that the lives of these children would be better if they were living in a marital household,” he asserted, noting that even the defense’s star witness, David Blankenhorn, had agreed.

While he spoke generally of the legal and emotional benefits of marriage to children in same-sex headed households, however, he neglected to speak of how having married parents conveys certain things to children about the meaning of marriage itself—and what the long-term impact of that is on the institution of marriage. Read the rest of this post »