Weekly Political Roundup

• The law firm hired to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has withdrawn from its contract to do so, but the lawyer who was to take the case has left the firm and plans to defend it from elsewhere.
• On the other hand, the Senate committee considering a bill to repeal DOMA may just have the votes.
• Yes on 8, the group supporting California’s Proposition 8 ban on marriage for same-sex couples, filed a motion to vacate Judge Vaughn Walker’s federal district court ruling that overturned the ban, saying he should have recused himself because he is gay.
• The Minnesota legislature is considering bills that would ask voters in 2012 to approve a measure making marriage of same-sex couples unconstitutional.
• The Nevada state Senate approved bills that would outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender identity in housing and public accommodations, but a measure that would have made attacks based on gender identity or expression into hate crimes failed.
• Marriage equality is off the table this year in Rhode Island. House Speaker Gordon Fox (D) said there was not support to pass a bill in either chamber, and he will instead support a civil union bill.
• A bill pending in the Texas legislature could bar transgender people from marriage and could nullify existing ones.

Around the world:

• India’s Supreme Court has delayed hearing appeals of a lower court ruling that struck down the nation’s ban on gay sex.

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 124

Helen and I discuss three—count ‘em, three—new children’s books by and/or inclusive of lesbian and gay parents, including Donovan’s Big Day, by Lesléa Newman, author of the classic Heather Has Two Mommies. (I’ll have more on Donovan soon, so stay tuned. In brief: Definitely one worth reading and recommending to your local library.)

We also share some of the fun we’ve been having putting in a garden this spring.

Mombian: She Got Me Pregnant, 04-28-2011 by drudolph
(If the embedded video above doesn’t work for you, try it at Dailymotion.)

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

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Lesbian Swans and LGBT Parenting Films – LGBT Parenting News from Boston

Two pieces of LGBT parenting news from my town of Boston: On May 3, the Boston Public Garden’s famed swans return for the season. The birds, Romeo and Juliet, are in fact a pair of females who laid eggs and attempted to care for them together, as the Boston Globe reported, and I discussed, a few years back. The eggs were unfertilized, alas, and there was no friendly keeper like And Tango Makes Three’s Mr. Gramzay to give them a viable egg to hatch.

The 23rd Annual Return of the Swans begins at 11:30 a.m. in a day of entertainment that includes a brass band, face painters, and Boston Park Rangers reading Make Way for Ducklings—which, despite being about ducks, features the Public Garden Swan Boats.

And on a more explicitly LGBT note: In honor of Mother’s Day, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) is co-presenting a series of three films on LGBT parenting at the Boston LGBT Film Festival:

Living Adoption: Gay Parents Speak tells the story of adoption from the parent’s perspective.

A Family Portrait shows the challenges that a couple faces in starting a family and raising their children.

Mama Mama, Papa Papa explores the issues around gay parenting in Switzerland from the perspective of both parents and children.

Sunday, May 8, 2011
2:30 pm
Museum of Fine Arts
Boston, MA

For tickets and more information visit www.bostonlgbtfilmfest.org.

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.

LGBT Parenting Roundup

Politics and Law

• Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill that will give married, opposite-sex couples “placement preference” in the adoption of children, when all other factors are equal.
• The Virginia State Board of Social Services voted not to approve a proposal from former Gov. Tim Kaine (D) that would have prohibited discrimination against potential adoptive parents on the basis of sexual orientation.
• An Illinois Senate committee killed a bill that would have allowed child welfare agencies to deny a person’s adoption or foster home application if the person was in a civil union if to do so would go against the organization’s religious beliefs.
• The Delaware Supreme Court ruled that a lesbian mother was the “de facto” parent of the child she had been raising with her former partner, and whom the partner had adopted from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan does not allow same-sex couples to adopt, and the woman had intended to file for a second-parent adoption later—but then the couple broke up.
• An arrest was made in the long-running custody battle between Janet Jenkins and her former partner Lisa Miller.
• Most custody battles between biological and non-biological parents that make the news involve two women, but here’s the story of two gay dads in Calgary, Alberta facing a similar situation. The non-bio dad declined to adopt the child, because he “he did not want to antagonize the birth mother,” and now he is cut out of the life of the girl he helped raise for several years.
• A French lesbian couple has gone before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in order to try and secure a second-parent adoption of the daughter born to one of them.
• Mark Kellner at The Atlantic shares his “Confessions of a Disinvited White House Bunny,” his tale of how the George W. Bush White House axed his appearance at the White House Easter Egg Roll as Buster Baxter, the bunny star of PBS’ Postcards from Buster, after an episode of the show depicted Buster visiting two lesbian moms and their children at their farm in Vermont.

Personal Stories

• Lots of gender-related stories this week. Joanne Herman brings us the inspiring testimony of a dad speaking about his 13-year-old transgender daughter at a Maine Judiciary Committee hearing on a bill that would allow the operators of restrooms and shower facilities “to decide who can use which gender’s restroom based upon ‘biological sex.’”
• On a related note, you should read this story by a member of the Harry Potter Alliance, a social justice organization, about her experience raising an intersex, transgender daughter and the inspiration the girl found in Harry Potter.
• Nerdyapple, who wrote a moving piece last fall about her son’s feminine Halloween costume, offers her pointed thoughts on the far-right uproar over a recent J. Crew ad showing a mom and her son enjoying painting his toenails pink.

Entertainment and Fun

• HRC wants your nominations for their new “Mother of the Year” campaign, which “aims to raise the visibility of amazing LGBT and ally moms.” They note that those who have two moms may nominate one or both. I leave it to you how you want to bribe your kids.
• Live in Brooklyn, New York? There’s a maternity store in Park Slope that is giving a 10 percent discount to lesbian moms. (I have no affiliation, and make nothing by mentioning them. This isn’t a recommendation, just a bit of news.)

Nurse Jackie’s Lesbian Moms Divorce

The lesbian moms are back on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie tonight—and the sad news is, they’re getting a divorce. Below is a clip of them (played by Swoosie Kurtz and Judith Light) telling their son, Peter Facinelli’s Dr. Fitch “Coop” Cooper.

Still, I love the portrayal of the moms on the show because it’s one of the few examples we’ve seen in the media of LGBT parents with grown children. Yes, we can successfully raise children to adulthood. (Some may argue that Dr. Coop is hardly an example of well adjusted adulthood—but compared with the others on the show, he’s really about average, and arguably better than some.)

If you watch the show tonight, stop back and leave a comment with your thoughts.

Orange Jews Is Good for You

Here’s a seasonal tale that even those not of Jewish heritage will appreciate:

Rabbi Andrew Sacks, director of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly in Israel, has shared an e-mail from Jewish scholar Susannah Heschel, in which she explained the relatively recent tradition of placing an orange on the Seder plate. She began the tradition “as a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community. . . . I felt that an orange was suggestive of something else: the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life. In addition, each orange segment had a few seeds that had to be spit out—a gesture of spitting out, repudiating the homophobia of Judaism.”

Take that, Anita Bryant.

Whether you’re celebrating Passover, Easter, or simply the coming of spring, I hope you and your families are enjoying the season. (My spouse and I come from different traditions, so I’ve been pushing for a multi-denominational celebration in which we eat chocolate bunnies for eight days. Maybe I’ll fashion them some little gumdrop yarmulkes.)

Poet, Mother (and Lesbian) to Write in Honor of Royal Wedding

I wasn’t going to write about the royal wedding at all. Despite having lived in the U.K. for a couple of years, I find the monarchy interesting only as an example of the persistence of older traditions of European leadership. (Yes, I was a historian.)

But as a chronicler of things related to lesbian moms, I now feel obligated to note that Carol Ann Duffy, Britain’s Poet Laureate, will be writing a poem for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding. Duffy is a lesbian and a mother, although a few years ago, she told Jeanette Winterson (another great, out British writer), “I’m not a lesbian poet, whatever that is. If I am a lesbian icon and a role model, that’s great, but if it is a word that is used to reduce me, then you have to ask why someone would want to reduce me? I never think about it. I don’t care about it. I define myself as a poet and as a mother—that’s all.”

Part of the Poet Laureate’s job is to compose poems for royal occasions, but Duffy told the BBC Woman’s Hour in 2009 that she would only write for the occasions that inspired her, saying, “If I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn’t, I’d ignore it.”

Did you catch that? Making sure to include same-sex unions as well? It will be interesting to see if her poem for Will and Kate, titled, “Rings,” will focus more on universal themes of relationships, rather than gendered ones.

Duffy is the first Scot, the first woman, the first LGBT person, and the first mother to hold the British Poet Laureate title. She in fact left the decision about whether to take the position up to her 13-year-old daughter, reported the AP (via 365gay.com), who urged her to do so because she would be the first woman.

(Bonus fun fact: Between May 1, 2009, when Duffy was appointed Poet Laureate of Britain, until May 2010, when Kay Ryan ended her two terms as Poet Laureate of the U.S. (technically, “Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress”), both countries had lesbian poets laureate.)

Author Arthur Levine Talks About His LGBT-Inclusive Picture Book

Congratulations to Mandy, winner of the final Monday is One Day giveaway last week.

Here’s a video of author Arthur Levine talking about the book, his own very personal inspiration for it, and Julian Hector’s fitting illustrations. Levine is openly gay, and includes a pair of gay dads in the book, but the book’s message is really far more universal.

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