More news for and about LGBTQ parents and our children that I haven’t covered at length elsewhere. Pull up a cup of something and enjoy!
Family Profiles
- Photographer Maureen Cotton shares, in words and photos, the story of creating a family with her wife, including a long fertility struggle followed by 70 days in the NICU for their son.
Politics and Law
- First, go read this piece at the ACLU blog by Amber Finet, who was in the Michigan foster care system for 12 years before being adopted by a mom and dad at age 17. “I love my parents. Still, I wonder whether I might have been spared the years of instability and loss had there been more families out there to care for kids in the foster care system,” she writes. “I was horrified to learn that Michigan now permits state-contracted child placement agencies to turn away loving prospective foster and adoptive parents based solely on religious objections to certain kinds of families, specifically, same-sex parent families. It makes no sense to enact policies that make it even more difficult for kids to find the loving and nurturing homes they need. It’s cruel.” Another woman who had been in foster care, Jennifer Ludolph, is part of the ACLU of Michigan’s new lawsuit challenging the religious exemption laws.
- The Netherlands could become the first country as a whole to allow more than two legal parents, reports the Economist. (Several U.S. states and Canadian territories have also allowed this.)
Media
- McCain Foods included a two-dad family in a recent U.K. television ad for their frozen potato products. This spawned a slew of homophobic hate mail to the couple and company—but also lots of supportive comments.
- On an unfortunately similar, but even worse note, a book featuring a two-mom family, Maya and her Moms, by Ukrainian author Larysa Denysenko, has been removed from a Ukrainian book fair after ultranationalist and other right-wing groups threatened violence. (See also yesterday’s post here on Banned Books Week and attempts at censorship in the U.S.)