The day may be short, but it’s full of LGBTQ parenting news. Pull up a cup of something warm and read on.
Family Profiles
- Erika and Justine Garcia-Santos of Sacramento, California, share with Gay Star News the story of their child’s premature birth and struggle for survival. While many challenges remain, “He is a very feisty and active little boy” at nearly three months old, they say.
Politics and Law
- Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) finally instructed the state Department of Health to begin issuing accurate birth certificates to married same-sex parents, listing both people as parents, and to reissue corrected certificates to same-sex parents who need them. He had previously issued orders requiring mediation between the state and three same-sex couples who had sued the state for this right—a case (Pavan v. Smith) that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and found in favor of the plaintiffs. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox, however, said on December 8 that the state must stop issuing any birth certificates until the state took action to comply with the Pavan decision. This was enough to force Hutchinson to take action.
- The Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission has reprimanded W. Mitchell Nance, a former family court judge, for violating judicial rules when he refused to handle adoption cases involving same-sex parents. Since he’s retired, that’s all they can do, but they say “a public reprimand is warranted.”
- An ultra-Orthodox Jewish transgender woman may now see her children again, after a U.K. appeals court overturned an earlier decision blocking her from them. The lower court had said “the gulf between these parents — the mother within the ultra-Orthodox community and the father as a transgender person — is too wide for the children to bridge”—but the Court of Appeal ruled that more contact with their father was in “the best interests of these children.” As a Jew myself (albeit at the opposite end of the spectrum from ultra-Orthodoxy), I feel particular disgust at how the community is treating her. For an interesting (and much more inclusive) look at what Jewish law says about transgender and nonbinary people, check out this Twitter thread from Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. (Or if you’re in Massachusetts, contact me and I’ll tell you how to drop by the trans- and LGBQ- inclusive temple of which I’m part.)
- The HRC Foundation has released “Disregarding the Best Interest of the Child: License to Discriminate In Child Welfare Services,” a report on the harms of efforts to legalize anti-LGBTQ discrimination by child welfare agencies.
- Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, also a lesbian mom (and grandmother, as of five weeks ago) has been named President and CEO of the Victory Fund and Victory Institute, which seek to increase the number of openly LGBT elected officials at all levels of government.
Business and Media
- Out In Jersey profiles Campbell’s Soup CEO and ally Denise Morrison, who has “made it her priority to reinvent Campbell as a brand for modern families of all genders, races and sexualities.”
- HRC is conducting a survey of LGBTQ parents about their experience taking time off from work for significant life events. Take part and you’ll have the option to enter into a raffle for one of twenty $25 Amazon gift cards.