A very happy Mothers’ Day or Mother’s Day to you, no matter how many moms you are celebrating! Here are some mom-related stories of note this week:
- J.C. Penney is featuring lesbian moms Wendi and Maggie and their daughters, along with Wendi’s mother, in their May catalog. Double kudos to the store for doing this despite coming under fire from right-wing group “One Million Moms” after selecting Ellen DeGeneres to be their spokesperson.
- Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz has an awesome essay, “All the ways that we are queer mamas of color,” at Strong Families’ equally awesome “Mama’s Day Our Way” blog series. Make sure also to check out their diverse, inclusive, and socially just Mama’s Day e-cards.
- A bevy of celebrities have joined GLAAD in asking the Boy Scouts to adopt more inclusive policies, and to reinstate Jennifer Tyrrell, whom the Scouts ejected as den leader of her son’s den because she is a lesbian. You, too, can join GLAAD in sending a message to the Boy Scouts for Mother’s Day.
- A Colorado court said lesbian mom Wendy Alfredsen must be given access to the daughter she had raised for several years with her ex, Lena Alfredson. Each mom had adopted one of two biological sisters (state law did not allow them to adopt jointly) before they broke up. Lena then took her legal daughter and went to Norway, whereupon Wendy filed a suit using a new state law that allows non-biological parents to file paternity suits. LGBT family lawyer Nancy Polikoff says that although the use of “paternity” in reference to a woman is novel, the decision was actually expected, given previous applications of the law in cases involving opposite-sex parents.
- While I usually focus on lesbian moms, I thought this story of a straight, evangelical mom’s journey to acceptance of her lesbian daughter, as told in her new book Above All Things
, was worth a Mothers’ Day mention.
Finally, on a poignant note, Tracy Rodemeyer, mother of Jamey Rodemeyer, who died by suicide last year after anti-gay bullying, writes of her first Mother’s Day without him. You can leave a comment of support for her at the GLAAD Web site.
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