• National Guard Lt. Dan Choi and former Army Capt. Jim Pietrangelo were arrested Thursday after chaining themselves to the White House fence to protest Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). Pietrangelo was discharged under DADT in 2004, and Choi is in the process of being discharged under it now. Also arrested was activist Robin McGehee of GetEqual.org, who helped Choi and Pietrangelo with their protest.
• Earlier in the day, the Senate Armed Services Committee held another hearing to discuss DADT. Former NATO commander John J. Sheehan asserted that the presence of gay troops was one reason the Dutch army had been unable to defend Srebrenica during the Bosnia war, a charge denied by the Dutch ambassador.
• Will the studies launched by Defense Secretary Robert Gates helped justify a repeal of DADT, or are they just a way to stall? Lisa Keen investigates.
• Activists held sit-ins at the Washington, D.C., and San Francisco offices of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, demanding that she bring a vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to the floor by the end of the month. Ten were arrested, fined, and released.
• Rev. Mary D. Glasspool was elected by a majority of bishops and dioceses of the Episcopal Church to be a suffragan bishop of Los Angeles, the church’s second openly gay or lesbian bishop and first lesbian one. The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, called her election “regrettable.”
• After the New Hampshire state House defeated two anti-equality bills in February, 80 out of 139 communities (57.6 percent) considered and rejected non-binding resolutions to create a statewide vote on the matter. Nine more have yet to consider the issue. (Via GLAD e-mail; not yet on Web site.)
• Lambda Legal has filed a motion with the New Jersey Supreme Court seeking marriage equality on behalf of the plaintiffs in the original Lewis v. Harris lawsuit. The original lawsuit led to a ruling that said it was unconstitutional to treat same-sex couples differently, but left the remedy to the Legislature, which enacted civil unions.
• The New York supreme court appellate division ruled that the state may annul a civil union from another state.

Around the world:

• Three weeks after allowing Norrie mAy-welby to receive a new birth certificate with a “not specified” gender, the Australian government has changed its mind, and now says the certificate is invalid.
• The New York Times profiles the gay men’s community in Cambodia.

If you’re a non-biological, non-adoptive parent, please let us know in the comments how you’re completing the form!

Let’s say you’re a couple with kids. One of you is a biological parent and the other is non-biological. Imagine you live in a place where a non-biological parent cannot do a second-parent adoption, or in a place that allows a non-biological parent to go on the child’s birth certificate without needing an adoption. Doing an adoption as well is a good idea for when you travel, but let’s say you haven’t done this yet—or have, but don’t consider yourself an “adoptive” parent to the child you planned with your partner from the start.

The Census questions ask about the first person in the household. For each additional person, they ask, “How is this person related to Person 1? Mark ONE box.” How would you mark this if you are the non-biological parent, answering the question about your child:

• Husband or wife
• Biological son or daughter
• Adopted son or daughter
• Stepson or stepdaughter
• Brother or sister
• Father or mother
• Grandchild
• Parent-in-law
• Son-in-law or daughter-in-law
• Other relative
• Roomer or boarder
• Housemate or roommate
• Unmarried partner
• Other nonrelative

That’s right. There is no appropriate way for a non-biological parent to indicate their child, even if they are legally on the child’s birth certificate, unless they have done an adoption and are willing to identify as an adoptive parent. Not that there’s anything wrong with being an adoptive parent—far from it—but there’s a difference between adopting a child from outside of one’s family and being forced to adopt the child one has planned from the start with a partner. From a demographic and sociological perspective, that’s useful information.

One could of course choose “Other relative,” but that seems insulting as well as inaccurate.

Yes, you could just make sure the biological parent was listed as “Person 1,” but some families might not want to do that. Consider that Our Families Count advises:

Census reports some statistics based on the race/ethnicity of the “household”. In these cases, they categorize households by the race/ethnicity of Person 1 (head of household). Given that people of color are often under counted, LGBT people of color in bi-racial relationships should consider identifying as the head of household.

As S noted in her comment on my original post:

They’d be much better to have an option like “child by birth” rather than “biological child,” to denote someone who became a legal parent by virtue of the child having been born into that person’s custody. Because even a heterosexual couple who used donor sperm to conceive the kids wouldn’t technically qualify to check off “biological child” either, if the dad is Person 1 filling out the form.

Not only that, but because the Census form only asks for the relation of everyone in the household to “Person 1″ (whomever you decide that is), the relation of “Person 2″ to the child is completely lost. S observed:

A family composed of children living with one biological parent and one stepparent, or one biological parent and one adoptive parent, can look exactly the same as a family whose children are living with two biological parents, if a bio parent is listed as Person 1. Alternatively, if the stepparent or adoptive parent is Person 1, then you lose all record that the child is living with any bio parents.

This is thus “an enormously inaccurate way to gather data about family structure, and not just because of gay/lesbian issues,” she said.

Hear, hear. Maybe by the time Census 2020 rolls around, we’ll have a form that better reflects the lives of all Americans.

Oh, but why, you ask, when we still have our tax forms, kids’ summer camp registrations, and field trip permission forms to complete?

Our Families Count, a public education campaign for the LGBT community and our allies, explains:

These data are used to determine the distribution of seats in the House of Representatives and provides key population numbers for Congress and the administration to determine how federal dollars flow to the states and cities for health care, housing, and English as a second language classes. Census information is also used in the enforcement of an array of civil rights laws in employment, housing, voting, lending, education, and the availability of bilingual ballots and interpreters at poll sites. The census has a big impact on our political power and economic security.

Since 1990, when the census added the “unmarried partner” designation on its form, LGBT people in same-sex relationships have provided the first visible record of our partnerships in the history of our nation. These data have been very important in countering anti-gay lies, myths and misperceptions about the diverse LGBT community.

Visit their Web site for more information, and for answers to intriguing questions like:

• Is there a sexual orientation or gender identity question on the 2010 Census?
• If I am transgender, do I check the sex I was assigned at birth or my gender identity/expression? What if neither of these options fit my identity?
• How will LGBT same-sex married spouses and unmarried partners be counted by the census?
• Why should LGBT people of color in bi-racial relationships consider identifying as head of household?
• How do I know that the government won’t use this information to target me or my family for discrimination?

Garden State Equality also advises, in an e-mail to supporters:

If you are a same-sex couple living together, . . . you have two options: Check off “married” or “unmarried partners.” If you are a same-sex couple living together, do not check off “single” under any circumstances.

On a parental note, I’ll also encourage you to fill out the form with your kids, if they’re old enough. It makes for a good civics lesson.

I agree with Robin Wirthlin.

The Massachusetts Mormon mother and I might not seem to have a lot in common. She and her husband were featured in a 2008 video for California’s “Yes On 8” campaign in which she explains that she was shocked when her son told her his second-grade class had read the picture book King & King, about a prince who marries another prince.

She was so shocked, in fact, that she and her husband sued the school district, saying that the school’s attempt to “indoctrinate” their children violated their constitutional rights as parents. They did not win their case, despite an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (which the court refused to hear).

Still, they did not hesitate to make a video for Yes On 8 (used later by Stand for Marriage Maine) in which they say that their second-grader was too young “to learn about homosexuality.”

I’ve been thinking of the video because the defense in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger Prop 8 trial played it for the court last week. They were attempting to get Yale professor George Chauncey to admit that parents should be able to exempt their children from learning in school about same-sex marriage. Chauncey, to his credit, stated that married same-sex couples are a fact of life in Massachusetts. If parents don’t want their kids to hear about that in public school, he said, they should put them in private school.

How, then, could I possibly agree with Robin Wirthlin?

Where we concur is in her assertion, “We just wanted [our children] to have a carefree and protected childhood.” That is a goal I, too, support for my son.

I strongly disagree with Wirthlin, however, about the type of things we think will do our children harm. Protecting them, as I see it, does not mean insulating them from the reality of other loving families in their communities. It does not mean harming other children in the process.

The harm to children is not from learning about gay people. It is from being told their families are second class, undeserving of the same rights as others. It is learning that marriage is not a matter of lasting commitment, but can be obliterated by something as simple as crossing a state line. It is feeling outcast because one wants to ask a person of the same gender to the high school dance, being harassed on the playground for not having a father, or beaten up in the boys’ locker room for wearing a too-feminine shirt.

During the Prop 8 hearings, Chauncey drew parallels between Wirthlins’ video and Anita Bryant’s “Save the Children” campaign in the 1970’s, in which the singer tried to show that gay people are child molesters and that gay-inclusive anti-discrimination laws would incent children to be gay. The campaign against marriage equality is part of this longer history of bias, Chauncey said.

Much of the struggle for lesbian and gay rights, therefore, can be seen as a struggle to show that there is nothing about gay men or lesbians that is of harm to children. The plaintiffs and the defense in the Prop 8 case have each lined up a slew of child psychology experts (or supposed experts) and research to back their side’s view. Not surprisingly, many of the witnesses and exhibits are the same ones used in the 2008 Florida case that considered whether gay men and lesbians should be allowed to adopt.

What the supporters of Prop 8 ignore, though, is that children will learn about gay people regardless of the curriculum or the legal status of our relationships. Unless we have our children taken from us by force, gay men and lesbians will continue to be parents. Our children will continue to be in schools, sitting next to theirs.

And that interaction can create unexpected bonds.

My son has two close friends who are Catholic. Their families are observant enough to send them to weekly religious education classes. The Catholic Church, however, ranks right up there with the Mormon Church as one of the religious institutions most opposed to LGBT rights.

The friends’ parents are, however, unphased about their children knowing that our son has two moms. They think nothing about sending their children to our house for playdates. We have formed a personal connection through our children that transcends what the Church as an institution may preach.

I know from speaking with other LGBT parents that I am not alone in this. While our rights are being debated on the public stage, it is the personal connections more than the political contests that give me hope.

It is painful to watch the defense in the Prop 8 case wielding misinformation about lesbian and gay parents. Regardless of the outcome of this case, though, I have to believe that more parents are realizing it is important to nurture their children’s friendships, regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity of the friends’ parents. It is important to give children the understanding to interact with people from many different backgrounds.

Strong friendships and social flexibility. Those tools are protection against a variety of ills, and in the end more effective than keeping children tightly shielded from the world around them. Those are also the tools that will allow our children to finish the job we have begun, of building a better future for us all.

Progress may be slow, but we are creating change, one playdate at a time.

• U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill to amend the Fair Housing Act to ban housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
• The commissioners of Kissimmee, Florida voted to allow city employees to cover their unmarried domestic partners under the city’s health and dental insurance plan.
• The Oklahoma state Senate approved an amendment to opt out of federal hate crimes protections for LGBT people. The measure now heads to the House for consideration. (Oklahoma, you may recall, had a law prohibiting the state from recognizing adoptions by same-sex couples from other states and countries, until a federal judge struck it down in 2006.)
• Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell told state agencies not to discriminate based on sexual orientation, despite Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli’s letter last week telling public colleges to change any anti-discrimination policies that included such protections.
• Washington, D.C., along with Mexico City, celebrated the first weddings of same-sex couples this week.

Around the world:

• Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa wrote a must-read piece about gay rights in Africa and the role of the Church.
• The government of New South Wales, Australia is the first in the world officially to recognize an individual’s gender as “not specified”.
• Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, confirmed that the country began paying for gender reassignment surgery procedures for transgender citizens in 2008.
• Mexico City, along with Washington, D.C., celebrated the first weddings of same-sex couples this week.
• TIME profiled a lesbian couple in Uganda, and their struggle to live under one of the most repressive anti-LGBT regimes in the world.

• The ACLU and and Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition are advocating on behalf of a Mississippi high school student who wants to go to the prom with her girlfriend. School officials have said she may not arrive with her girlfriend or wear a tux, and must leave if other students become “uncomfortable.”
• A Catholic preschool in Boulder, Colorado has told a lesbian couple their child cannot return to the school next year because their sexual orientation is against Catholic teaching and school policy.
• The Washington State senate passed an LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying bill. It now goes to Gov. Christine Gregoire, who has said she will sign it.

Custody Cases

• Detroit’s Between the Lines has a lengthy and worthwhile piece on a custody case in which a biological mother is refusing to let her ex-partner see the three children the two of them had been raising together. Michigan does not allow second-parent adoptions. Nancy Polikoff has more on the case, and astutely notes: “We need courts to rule on the parent-child relationships created in a family, not on the perception that a ruling to preserve an existing parent-child relationship is a vote for same-sex marriage.”
• The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) announced the resolution of a custody dispute between a biological and a non-biological mom in California. (I’ve posted before about this case, in which the bio mom is now in a relationship with the women’s known sperm donor.) Under the settlement, both women are recognized as legal parents of their twins.

Politics and Law

• Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) plans this week to reintroduce the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people seeking to adopt children.
• Arizona state Rep. Warde Nichols says there’s no anti-gay agenda behind his bill giving preference to married couples in matters of adoption. Arizona Republic writer E.J. Montini is dubious.
• David Cameron, leader of the U.K.’s Conservative party, said that if his party gains power, it would extend maternity and paternity leave to same-sex couples in civil partnerships who adopt children or use assisted insemination. He also apologized for his party’s support of Section 28, a ban on the “promotion of homosexuality” by public authorities. (Side note: Section 28 had been enacted shortly before I went to live in the U.K. in 1988. It was my first real introduction to bias against gay people. Still, it’s about time the Tories are apologizing. I’m still not sure they’ve said “sorry” for Margaret Thatcher, though.)

Florida lawmakers are considering an incentive package to attract film and entertainment jobs to the state.  Productions with “nontraditional family values,” however, would be ineligible.  State Rep. Stephen Precourt (R-Orlando), who introduced the bill, said that films depicting gay families should not get the tax credit, reports the Palm Beach Post.

Gov. Charlie Crist agreed, defining “traditional” families as those with a married man and woman. (Someone should tell him that according to the 2000 U.S. Census, less than 25% of all families in the U.S. consist of a married, opposite-sex couple living with their own (biological or adopted) children.)

The bill (HB 697) was approved unanimously last week in the House Economic Development Policy Committee, and is apparently a priority for Republicans as part of their promise to create jobs.

Not everyone who wants to limit the tax credit to “family-friendly” films agrees with Precourt about the definition of family values. Some say that limiting the tax credit to “G-rated” films is enough. It is also unclear whether the language about “nontraditional family values” would make it through the state Senate version of the bill. Still, this type of thing sets my teeth on edge.

After the jump, the relevant section of the legislation. “Nontraditional family values” are lumped in with smoking, sex, nudity, gratuitous violence, and vulgar or profane language. There go my hopes of selling a screenplay that’s a sort of Heather Has Two Mommies meets Pulp Fiction.

Family-friendly productions.—A certified production determined by the Commissioner of Film and Entertainment, with the advice of the Florida Film and Entertainment Advisory Council, to be family-friendly, based on the review of the script and the review of the final release version, is eligible for an additional tax credit equal to 5 percent of its actual qualified expenditures. Family-friendly productions are those that have cross-generational appeal; would be considered suitable for viewing by children age 5 or older; are appropriate in theme, content, and language for a broad family audience; embody a responsible resolution of issues; and do not exhibit or imply any act of smoking, sex, nudity, nontraditional family values, gratuitous violence, or vulgar or profane language.

• Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and 11 Democratic cosponsors introduced a bill to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee held hearings on the policy Wednesday.
• Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) called for an end to the ban on blood donation by gay men.
• An unknown senator or senators have put a hold on the nomination of lesbian law professor Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
• The New York Assembly for the third time passed a bill to extend employment protections on the basis of gender identity. The bill’s fate in the State Senate is uncertain.
• Rhode Island saw its largest-ever rally for marriage equality. Four gubernatorial candidates expressed their support.
• Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II asked the state’s public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. He says only the General Assembly can create such protections. Coincidentally (!), an Assembly subcommittee refused to pass such a bill just this week.
• Same-sex couples in Washington, D.C. celebrated their first day of being able to obtain marriage licenses. The first marriages will take place next week, after a mandatory waiting period.

Around the World:

• The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Poland cannot discriminate against same-sex couples in housing, and a gay man in the city of Szczecin could continue living in the flat he and his now-deceased partner had shared.
• The Slovenian Parliament passed a first reading of a bill to legalize marriage and adoption by same-sex couples.
• Mexico City became the second national capitol this week to allow same-sex couples to apply for marriage licenses.
• The U.K. House of Lords approved an amendment to the Equality Bill, permitting same-sex couples to have civil partnerships in church. Churches may choose whether to host civil partnership ceremonies.

The D.C. Marriage Bureau says it is preparing for a “flood” of couples. Several couples have volunteered to be media spokespeople, and because a few of them have children, I want to highlight them here. They represent only a few of the many families who will be celebrating in the coming days, but deserve our thanks for being willing to take on extra responsibilities during what would be a stressful day under any circumstances.

Information below provided by the Campaign for All DC Families.

Angelisa Young and Sinjolya Townsend

Angelisa and Sinjolya, both African-American females, will be married at HRC Equality Forum on March 9th in the presence of family and friends. Angelisa (age 47) and Sinjolya (age 41) have been together for 13 years and have two children ages 21 and 25. They both work for DC government and are long-time residents of the District.

Reginald (Reggie) Stanley and Rocky Galloway

Reggie and Rocky, both African-American males, are long time residents of the district. They are both 50 years old and have two children, Malena and Zoe Stanley-Galloway, that are each 15 months old. They will be married at HRC Equality Forum on March 9th. Participating in the ceremony will be their two children, Jim Cullion (the best man) and Cherrie McCoy (the best woman).

Rick A. Imirowicz and Terrance Heath

Rick Imirowicz, a forty-three-year old Caucasian male, will be marrying Terrance Heath, a forty-one-year old African-American male. Rick is a doctor and practices Catholicism, while Terrance practices Buddhism. They are long-time District residents, have been together for 10 years and have two children.

[Terrance is a long-time blogger. I had the pleasure of giving a blogging workshop with him on an R Family cruise a few years back. Go visit him over at Republic of T and congratulate him and his family. —DR]