News about kids, parenting and schools for this week:
- Not specifically LGBT, but still relevant: Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) reintroduced the Responsible Education about Life (REAL) Act legislation, to authorize federal funding for comprehensive and medically accurate sex education.
- Transgender youth face even higher levels of victimization in school than their non-transgender lesbian, gay and bisexual peers, but are also more likely to speak out about LGBT issues in the classroom, according to the first comprehensive study on transgender students, released this week by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
- A judge ruled that a legal challenge to an Arkansas law banning unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children can move to trial.
- The ACLU has filed a suit against Corona del Mar High School in California, accusing officials of fostering a homophobic and sexist environment. They are also backing a Peoria, Arizona teen who says he was ordered by a principal to turn his rainbow wristband that says “Rainbows are gay” inside-out or stop wearing it to school.
- The Tampa Tribune, via MSNBC, reports on the struggle to allow gay men and lesbians to adopt in Florida.
- The lesbian Indiana high student who wanted to wear a tux to her prom will be allowed to do so, after the School Board reverse its policies. She had filed a lawsuit last week.
- A federal judge gave Louisiana 15 days to add the names of two out-of-state fathers to the birth certificate of the Shreveport-born son they adopted. The state is appealing.
- After school officials in Grandfield, Oklahoma told teacher Debra Taylor to stop production of her class’ short video performance of the play “The Laramie Project,” based on the murder of Matthew Shepard, Taylor resigned. Local religious leaders said they alerted the school about concerns they had with obscenity in the script, not its gay content. (Yeah, right.)
- An editorial in The Tennessean argues against the state’s proposed ban on adoption by unmarried people. It notes that the bills may cost the state an additional $8.2 million in state and federal funds.
- The Tennessee House of Representatives K-12 Subcommittee put off voting on a bill that would bar elementary schools from “any instruction or materials discussing sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.”
- A Croatian MP has spoken out against a novel by Zoran Krusvar, “Zvjeri Pisane” (Stuffed Monsters), which “informs children about same-sex parents.” (Anyone know anything more about this book?)
- Denmark will now allow same-sex couples to adopt jointly, meaning our family can continue to accumulate Legos in good conscience.
- Israel’s National Insurance Institute authorized the country’s first-ever maternity leave for a gay male couple. (Which just points out the silliness of having gendered titles for these things.)
- A married lesbian couple in South Africa has bee battling the Home Affairs office for 19 months to include both their names as parents on the birth certificate of the son they planned together. Married! Legally! In South Africa! What’s the problem?