In Memoriam: Christina-Taylor Green

Nine-year old Christina-Taylor Green “was very interested in going” to see her state representative speak “because she wanted to learn more about government so she could help out in the future,” said her mother, Roxanna Green, according to MSNBC. Now the girl is dead, killed by the same man who shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others, including Green.

I simply can’t imagine losing a child, much less to a senseless act of violence. If there is one thing that gives me parental nightmares—the waking-up-in-a-cold-sweat-with-the-shakes kind—it is these incidents of random shootings or bombings in schools or public places.

Christina-Taylor Green was born on September 11, 2001, a day that brought our country together against another senseless act. Rather than bringing us together, though, Saturday’s shooting seems to have torn us apart, highlighting the divide between left and right. Yes, the right may have used gun/crosshairs imagery more obviously of late, but examples can be found on both the left and the right. And political rhetoric—no matter what the source—is only one part of what caused suspect Jared Lee Loughner to pull the trigger. The tragedy has no one cause. Preventing others from happening will have no one solution.

If you haven’t yet, go read this article on Green by Rev. Anne Howard. She is an Episcopal priest, but her words go beyond any particular faith or political persuasion. “What we need in the public square right now, in our places of worship and places of learning, in our Tweets, blogs and Facebook posts and in our supermarket parking lots, is a kind of love that looks something like a mother’s love,” she writes. A love both tender and fierce.

It will take more than that, of course. It may take legislation or better enforcement of existing laws. It may take better measures to detect when people are at risk of committing violence, and to get them the help they need. But without an attitudinal change in our society, these actions will never be implemented effectively.

The death of Green and the others is a tragedy. It would be a worse tragedy, however, if they died in vain. Let us hope we as a country consider this a wake-up call, from the federal level right down to what we teach and practice in our communities and our households. We can disagree without hatred. We can debate without spreading fear. We can compete without violence. We can offer a hand to those in need.

“We” means all of us.

Weekly Political Roundup

• Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he would work to help implement the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, even though he opposed the legislation.
• President Barack Obama renominated Edward C. DuMont to be a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. If the Senate approves his nomination, DuMont would become the first out gay appellate judge in the country.
• The LGBT community held its collective breath when news broke Tuesday that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was about to issue a ruling in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, aka California’s Proposition 8 case. Alas, there was no ruling, only a request from the court to the California Supreme Court to clarify whether Yes on 8 (anti-equality) proponents have legal standing in the federal appeal to represent the voters who passed the initiative.
• John Laird has become secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency. Laird was one of the first openly gay people elected to the state legislature. Read the rest of this post »

Known or Unknown Donors: The Kids Are All Right Either Way, Study Shows

More intriguing results from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) (about which more here and here). This time, Drs. Nanette Gartrell of the University of California, San Francisco and Henny Bos of the University of Amsterdam have found that “the development of psychological well-being” in children of lesbian mothers between ages 10 and 17 “is the same for those who were conceived through known and unknown donors.”

The results, which appeared in the journal Human Reproduction in December, also showed that almost one quarter of the 17-year-olds in the study with as-yet-unknown donors wished they knew their donors, and about two thirds of those who have the option to meet them when they turn 18 plan to do so. In the next phase of the study, when the children turn 25, the researchers will ask those with identity-release donors whether she/he has contacted the donor, why or why not, and if so, what happened.

In a separate article in the same issue of Human Reproduction, a team led by Dr. Vasanti Jadva of the University of Cambridge found that about half of the sperm and egg donors studied wanted identifying information about their donor offspring. Not only that, but “All of the donors who had contact with their donor offspring reported positive experiences and the majority continued to have regular contact.”

My take on all this? There’s no one “right” or “wrong” answer to the question of whether to use a known or unknown donor. It’s all a matter of personal preference and circumstance, and it’s only one part of the whole complicated network of things that make our children who they are.

(Thanks to Reuters for the heads up.)

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U.S. Passport Applications to Say “Parent” and “Parent”

On December 22, the State Department announced that they would be changing the U.S. passport application to say “Parent” and “Parent” rather than “Mother” and “Father.”

Many of you may have played a part in making this happen: After running into the Mother/Father problem while completing a passport application for my son back in July, I started a petition over at Change.org, asking the State Department to change the form to say “Parent” and “Parent.” Over 900 people signed, including, I assume, some of you who read my post about it here at Mombian.

The Family Equality Council also deserves our hearty recognition and thanks. They have led the effort for the passport change and have been advocating hard for it in Washington.

The State Department has also changed the Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) — a document confirming that a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen acquired U.S. citizenship at birth — to say “Parent” and “Parent.” The CRBA still states, however, “The following items pertain to the biological parents.” I know all of you with non-bio moms in the family see the problem with that one.

I spoke with Emily Hecht-McGowan, Director of Public Policy and Community Engagement for FEC, who said that the CRBA is controlled by U.S. immigration regulations and confers citizenship through biology. This was done a long time ago in order to protect children born out of wedlock to U.S. citizens abroad. She says this is one of many issues that FEC is continuing to address in Washington.

Still, things seem to be moving in the right direction. For those of us tired of crossing out “Father” and writing in “Mother” every time we fill out a school, camp, or medical form, the passport change is welcome news. Writing in the correction is not the biggest hassle in the world, but it’s another reminder of how our families are marginalized. It hurts even more if our kids are standing there watching us. Having “Parent” and “Parent” on what is arguably the single most important piece of identification a U.S. citizen may have sets a tremendous example for other agencies and organizations.

You may complete or print out an official U.S. Passport Application from the State Department Web site, but note that the new form will not be available until February 1.

Now go travel someplace fun with your families!

LGBT Parenting Roundup

I’m still recovering from the holidays, so let’s be different and start with some celebrity news before diving into politics:

Celebrity News

• Elton John and his partner David Furnish are now proud parents. “Elton John and David Furnish became first-time fathers on Christmas after welcoming a baby boy via a surrogate,” says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Just once, though, I want to see a newspaper headline say, “[Male celebrity] and [Female celebrity] welcomed their new baby via sexual intercourse.”Much coverage of the new dads has also mentioned that John is listed as “Father” and Furnish as “Mother” on the child’s birth certificate, as if that somehow explained their parental roles. Fact is, of course, it may or may not coincide with their roles—but they might just have filled them out at random, as the forms clearly haven’t caught up with the reality of families today. “Parent” and “Parent” really isn’t that hard, folks.
• Meanwhile, Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka spoke with People about raising their twins (and After Elton has a copy of the adorable photo spread).
• Jane Lynch, lesbian mom and Glee actor, and Dan Savage, gay dad and “It Gets Better” campaign founder, talk with Newsweek about gay rights and being parents. Read the rest of this post »

Songs About Field Trips from Erin Lee

Photo credit: Mark Bergin

Children’s musician Erin Lee Kelly bring us the next of her 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 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.

I first met Dana—and Mombian—on a summer cruise with R Family Vacations, the amazing vacation company for GLBT families (and friends and neighbors and cousins!) It was my third cruise with R Family, so by then I had figured out how to navigate the ship without getting lost, sunburned, seasick, or locked in the Deck 7 Bathroom.

Yes indeed, I got stuck in a stall en route to Alaska and remained there for the better part of an afternoon until I was rescued by four boy scouts. Now as boy scouts, these kids had been trained to “keep the victim (me) calm until help arrives.” So, while my rescue was underway, one of the boys said reassuringly “Don’t worry! When we get you out, this will make a terrific song!” Apparently I did not concur, as he calmly and in a very capable manner continued on: “If you’re too embarrassed to write about this, you can write about what happened to me. I was on a field trip and got locked in the bathroom and they got me out. Can you imagine? On a FIELD TRIP! And I’m just fine now. You’ll be fine, too.”

Well, they got me out and I have lived to tell the tale—and his tale too, of a field trip gone awry. You never know what may happen on a field trip, but beginning to end, they are always an adventure. Here are some of my favorite tunes about field trips. Read the rest of this post »

Eleven LGBT Parenting Resolutions for 2011

(Happy 2011 to all! I’ll be back on a regular posting schedule next week. In the meantime, here’s a piece that was originally published as my Mombian newspaper column. Feel free to add your own resolutions in the comments.)

The end of November through early January is one big party in our multi-celebration family, with Thanksgiving leading to Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s, and my spouse’s birthday in quick succession. In between finding room for our son’s new Lego sets and making sure the cats don’t eat the tinsel off the tree or knock over the menorah, however, I like to think about resolutions for the coming year. Here are 11 for 2011 that I offer as suggestions for other parents as well—some generic, some with an LGBT twist. Read the rest of this post »