LGBT Parenting Roundup

Happy Monday, everyone! Here’s a roundup of what’s been going on in the news about LGBT parents.

Schools and Education

• Joanne Herman asks, “Should we introduce children to the concept of transgender people?” and answers definitely “yes,” noting (among other things) a paper published in the December 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed Graduate Journal of Social Science.
• Alex Blaze at Bilerico discusses a British initiative to include lessons about LGBT history in schools at all levels. Aside from the LGBT content, I think this is a great example of weaving in relevant current events while also teaching “core subjects” like math and language. The plan was developed by the Training and Development Agency for Schools, an education quango (that is, a public-private partnership—but it’s more fun to say “quango”).
• The government of New South Wales, Australia, will be launching a AU$250,000 program to tackle homophobia in high schools.
• The Boston archdiocese has issued a new admissions policy for parochial schools, after one school last May withdrew its acceptance of a child because he has lesbian moms. The new policy says schools will not “discriminate against or exclude any categories of students” but parents must accept that Catholic teachings are part of the curriculum.

Family Creation

• Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, offers advice at 429.com for same-sex couples looking to adopt. Read the rest of this post »

Weekly Political Roundup

• President Obama, in his State of the Union address, noted the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and called on college campuses that had banned military recruiters and ROTC because of the policy to allow them to return. Some LGBT advocates are saying colleges should not do so until servicemembers are protected against gender identity discrimination as well.
• President Obama named LGBT-rights activist (and lesbian mom!) Roberta Achtenberg to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He also nominated openly gay attorney J. Paul Oetken to the federal bench, and former National Gay and Lesbian Task Force head Jeffrey Levi to the Department of Health and Human Services Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.
• Politico interviewed—not out Colorado Rep. Jared Polis—but his partner Marlon Reis, the district’s “first lad.” Read the rest of this post »

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 121

Helen and I show you the connection between vampire bunnies and anti-bullying efforts. We also discuss some psychedelic kids’ movies and books we’ve been enjoying, and wonder how Disney’s Fantasia got away with being so risqué. (Topless female centaurs! In 1940! And Disney still shies away from openly gay characters, even fully clothed.)

Mombian: She Got Me Pregnant, 01-27-2011
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Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Rainbow Bibliography Helps Librarians Help LGBTQ Youth

The American Library Association (ALA) has published its fourth annual Rainbow Bibliography, a list of recommended children’s and young adult books with significant LGBTQ content. The list is a yet another arrow in the quiver of those looking to support LGBTQ youth and children of LGBTQ parents—and I don’t need to tell you how important that is these days.

I have a lengthy interview with Lynn Evarts, chair of the Rainbow Project committee that selects the bibliography, in my Mombian newspaper column this week. You can read it over at Windy City Times, and it should appear in a few other papers over the next week or so. (I’ll crosspost it here after that.) She talks about the composition of this year’s Bibliography, some of her favorite books from it, and the special role of school librarians in supporting LGBTQ youth.

My interview with last year’s chair, Nel Ward, is here. Be sure to check out the full Rainbow Bibliography—for 2011 and years past—at the Rainbow Project Web site. Also see the ALA’s new 2011 Over the Rainbow list of LGBTQ titles for adults.

Legal Help for LGBT Parents

I often get e-mail from lesbian parents seeking legal advice for various matters: protecting both parents’ rights as they embark on parenthood; wanting advice in a custody or other dispute; wondering if their county/state will allow second-parent adoptions, and the like.

I am not a lawyer, so I can’t offer advice myself, but I can mention a few resources that may be able to point you in the right direction. In alphabetical order:

• The ACLU LGBT Report LGBT/HIV Discrimination form: “If you’ve been mistreated or harassed based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status, the ACLU wants to hear about it — we might be able to help.”
• The Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders Legal InfoLine: “Trained volunteers work one-on-one with callers to provide information, support and referrals within New England.”
• Lambda Legal Helpdesk: “Lambda’s Legal Help Desk staff respond directly to members of our communit(ies) who are seeking legal information and assistance with discrimination related to sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and HIV status.”
• The National Center for Lesbian Rights Legal Information Helpline: “Provides basic information about laws that affect LGBT people, including family law, and about resources available for people who are facing discrimination or other civil rights issues. The Legal Information Helpline is not a client intake line. We do not provide any legal advice, legal representation or take on cases through the Legal Information Helpline.”

In a perfect world, none of us would ever need these resources—but no, I don’t live in that one, either.

An LGBT Parenting Year in Review

(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column, hence the slightly belated posting here. But it’s still January, so I figure it’s still good.)

As 2010 gives way to 2011, let us ask: How has the year been in terms of political and legal progress for LGBT parents and our children?

The most notable parenting-specific win of the year was arguably Florida’s judicial overturning of its ban on adoption by gay men or lesbians. Mississippi, however, continues to ban same-sex couples from adopting, and Arkansas, Michigan, and Utah ban unmarried couples, which means essentially the same thing. The federal Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which would have withheld federal funds from states and other entities that discriminate against gay men and lesbians in adoption or foster care placements, was introduced in March, but failed to make it out of committee.

There were also state rulings in a variety of custody cases that pitted non-biological or non-adoptive parents against biological or adoptive ones. The rulings were mixed—in Texas, two different appeals courts even made opposite rulings about whether a non-biological mother has visitation rights.

And in a case with a wide impact, the North Carolina Supreme Court on December 20 voided the adoption by a lesbian nonbiological mother of the child she and her former partner, the biological mother, had been raising together. The ruling has thrown into question all other such “second-parent adoptions” in the state.  Read the rest of this post »

Weekly Political Roundup

• The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed new federal regulations that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in its core housing programs. (My piece on this at Keen News Service.
• The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a group of clergy who want to put Washington, D.C.’s marriage equality law on the ballot.
• What would you do with $193 million dollars? That was the cost of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell between 2004 and 2009, according to new figures from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Read the rest of this post »

Children at Heart of Florida Adoption Case Finally Adopted

The two children at the heart of the case that legalized adoption for gay men and lesbians in Florida have now been legally adopted by Martin Gill. The family had an adoption ceremony yesterday in the offices of Judge Cindy Lederman, the Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge who ruled that the adoption ban was unconstitutional and said Gill could adopt the brothers.

Gill’s partner, who remained unnamed in court documents, is still not a legal parent to the boys he, too, helped raise, however. Whether Florida would grant a second-parent adoption remains an open question.

Incoming Gov. Rick Scott also said yesterday that he remains opposed to adoption by gay men and lesbians, although he has no immediate plans to change the new policy, reports the Miami Herald. New Attorney General Pam Bondi agreed. Some people are worried, however, about Scott’s appointment of David Wilkins as secretary of the Department of Children & Families, according to the Herald. Wilkins serves as finance chief for the Florida Baptist Children’s Home, which “allows only ‘professing Christians’ to adopt children in its care.”