Pride & Opinions

I’ve noticed in the past few months that discussions of the rights of GLBT families to adopt children have eclipsed discussion of marriage in political circles. Now, maybe some of this is my selective perception, since I’ve got babies on the brain, and maybe it’s because the beginining of actual civil unions in a lot of states has folks asking what the next step is at the same time that reactionary states are backlashing. I’m not really sure, but either way, it’s interesting. And in this case, the Family Equality Council has my opinion captured in a nutshell, when speaking about the push to ban adoption amongst gay couples in Tennessee:

The Tennessean has posted its position on the subject:

“The bill is flawed in two fundamental ways. First, the suggestion that a gay couple or an unmarried heterosexual couple, by definition, is fundamentally an unstable familial relationship is just plain mistaken. Caring couples, married or unmarried, gay or straight, exist statewide. Those relationships are not automatically unstable. To the contrary, many stable relationships are found in those categories. Some of them want to adopt children.”

The publication goes on to say that the bigger flaw is the implication that a married heterosexual couple is automatically considered a stable family environment for children.

Linda O’Neal is executive director of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth. She points out knowledge supported by research:

“Research also does not support restricting adoption options. The American Psychological Association reports not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children’s psychosocial growth. The American Psychiatric Association reports children raised in gay or lesbian households do not show any greater incidence of homosexuality or gender identity issues than other children.”

GLBT, GLBT Families, gay adoption, Tennessee

GLBT, GLBT Families, gay adoption, Tennessee

Mombian has a great summary of a new comprehensive report, the first of its kind, on the experiences of LGBT families in schools. Called “Involved, Invisible, Ignored,” it details the ways that LGBT parents are involved in their children’s educations, and the way that they are harrassed by others in those situations. As Dana points out, “At first glance, the findings seem to jibe with what I would have guessed—which makes it no less important to have this kind of data to support policymaking and drive change. I’m not sure whether to be shocked at how many LGBT families experience harassment or be relieved the numbers aren’t higher.”

According to the press release at GLSEN, who produced the study,

“Students with lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender parents face isolation, invisibility and alienation due to harassment, name-calling and bullying in their schools,” said COLAGE Executive Director Beth Teper, who has a lesbian mother. “On behalf of the millions of people who have one or more LGBT parents, COLAGE urges students, schools and communities to learn about this important issue as the first step in building safe school environments for all. We also applaud youth with LGBT parents who act as educators and leaders every day when they navigate often unwelcoming schools.”

I’m looking forward to reading all 141 pages.

GLBT families, harassment, schools

GLBT families, harassment, schools

I remember when I was an undergrad that during GLBT pride week, or whatever it was called, that culminated in the Queer Union dance, there was always a sidewalk chalking that highlighted prominent GLBT figures throughout history. Though there was some question about individual people’s inclusion and whether those people were “really” gay, it was always provocative to be forced to rethink traditional historical narratives about family and important figures. Ramon’s Gay Life Blog at About.com has a good link to a Short History of Gay Rights, and here’s a good place to start:

Gay history. How far we’ve come given where we started.

“In 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposed a law that would mandate castration for gay men and mutilation of nose cartilage for gay women,” About.com Civil Liberties Guide Tom Head explains. “But that’s not the scary part. Here’s the scary part: Jefferson was considered a liberal. At the time, the most common penalty on the books was death.”

Today, some 224 years later, we must continue to demand gay equality. We must. LGBT teens make up 33% all teen suicides. Gays and lesbians are still targets of hate crimes. If my partner were severally ill, I would have no legal right to make medical decision or transfer my pension in the case of my death. The list of things I consider natural rights seems endless,. Yet I pause to celebrate how far we’ve come. I must, in hope of a brighter future.

A little learning’s never a bad thing.

GLBT, GLBT History

GLBT, GLBT History

I always think of the PTA as the bastion of stay at home moms in all their stereotypes, but the Family Equality Council blog has a different take - they say that LGBT parents should join the PTA not only to create connections with other parents but also to increase diversity and inclusiveness throughout the school:

It’s particularly important that LGBTQ parents get and stay active in groups like the Parent Teacher Assocation (PTA). PTA activities often set the tone for the school culture. Parents build relationships with other parents and teachers through shared work and efforts to improve the schools, and therefore get invested in each other and each others’ families.

Being involved in the PTA should first be about improving the educational experience of a child’s life, but in the case of LGBTQ parents, involvement doubles as a way to make the school safer and more inclusive of diverse family types.

I admit, I hadn’t really thought of this angle, but it’s a good tip, especially since study after study indicates that hatred and discrimination decrease with actual contact to people who are different from oneself. What do you all think - would you join the PTA to increase diversity in your child’s school?

GLBT Families, GLBT, PTA

GLBT Families, GLBT, PTA

Sorry for that impromptu little vacation last week. I promise to keep this here blog updated for the foreseeable future.

So, I know that the Oscars were a while ago, and that most people are over and done with them. But if you weren’t paying attention, you might have missed the best GLBT news to come out of them, which is that the documentary Freeheld won an Oscar. What’s Freeheld, you ask? 365gay.com says this:

(Hollywood, California) A documentary film on the struggle by New Jersey police officer Laurel Hester’s struggle to have her domestic partner recognized as her next of kin has won an Academy Award.

“Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story” was directed and produced by filmmaker Cynthia Wade. The award was presented Sunday night at the 80th Annual Academy Awards, held at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles.

“We are thrilled that this powerful film, one that has the potential to change hearts and minds concerning fairness for gay couples, has been honored,” said Neil Giuliano president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “We congratulate Cynthia Wade on her achievement and say ’bravo’ to the Academy for their selection.”

Hester had been a lieutenant with the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. Diagnosed with terminal cancer she was forced to retire. In late 2005, as the disease progressed she appealed to the Ocean County, New Jersey freeholders to give her same-sex partner her death benefits.

Although New Jersey recognized same-sex couples it left it up to local governments to determine if benefits should be offered the partners of employees.

After listening to her request, and her concern that when she died her partner, Stacie Andree, might lose their home, with little discussion the freeholders rejected the request.

The story was picked up across the country and as pressure mounted on freeholders she was allowed to make a second plea a month later. Filmmaker Wade traveled to Ocean County and chronicled the events that followed.

Too ill to appear in person Hester (pictured) appeared via video tape from her hospital room.

In a frail voice, and often gasping for air, Hester begged for recognition of her partnership with Andree.

“All I’m asking for is that you sign the resolution and that you make a change, a change for good, a change for righteousness and a change in the lives of so many people that have dedicated themselves to county government.”

After the moving tape was played a second vote was held and resolution passed.

A month later Hester died. (story)

“Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story,” premiered last year at the Sundance Film Festival.

Wade said that she promised Hester she would submit the film for consideration for an Academy Award.

Garden State Equality which had lobbied freeholders on Hester’s behalf held an Oscar party in New Jersey to watch the awards presentation. Members let out a cheer when the award was presented to “Freeheld”.

Garden State Equality chair Steven Goldstein said the film should spur on state lawmakers to amend the civil union law to provide for full marriage for same-sex couples.

“Because of the failure of the civil union law, there are new Laurel Hesters all across New Jersey,” said Goldstein.

” Same-sex couples denied equal benefits by employers, struggling to make ends meet, struggling to maintain their dignity, in the face of a civil union law that segregates, discriminates and humiliates.”

Last week a government commission released a report saying the civil union law had failed to provide the same equality as marriage.

The Oscar win is a triumph, and a stark reminder about the necessity of protections for GLBT relationships, because the threat of discrimination is all too real. I’m glad for them, but sad Laurel Hester couldn’t get what she needed.

Link via Lez Keep it Real.

Freeheld, Oscars, GLBT, gay marriage

Freeheld, Oscars, GLBT, gay marriage

I’m pretty sure that I think that this is good news, but I’m not sure. According to Gay Rights Watch,

Officials in the Poway school district near San Diego did not violate the First Amendment rights of a student they punished for wearing a homophobic T-shirt to class, a federal judge ruled.
Tyler Chase Harper sued the school district in 2004, arguing that his rights were violated when he was removed from class for wearing the anti-gay shirt on the Day of Silence, which is intended to promote tolerance of gays and lesbians. The shirt read “I Will Not Accept What God Has Condemned” on one side and “Homosexuality Is Shameful, Romans 1:27″ on the other side.

The next day, he wore the same shirt, but it had been altered to read “Be Ashamed [of What] Our School Has Embraced.” School administrators asked him to remove his shirt on the second day because they said it violated their dress code, which bans promotion of “violent or hateful behavior.”

Harper refused, and he was removed from class and assigned to the front office to complete his day’s remaining schoolwork.

So here’s the conundrum. I am generally very pro-free speech, especially when it comes to students, who I believe we allow to have their rights trampled in the name of keeping order, which I guess has a place but is not the primary goal of an education. At the same time, to me, the difference seems to be between the two shirt options - the first one is obviously acceptable and protected because it states an (abhorrent) opinion, and gives the student’s personal opinion on the matter (that the bible verse means he won’t accept tolerance). But on the second day, the student altered the t-shirt to direct it towards others, to say that they should be ashamed, which is what crosses the line. To me, it’s similar to the difference between wearing a t-shirt that has a bible verse about a woman obeying her husband, and saying you agree with it, and wearing a t-shirt that has the directive “Woman, Get Back into the Kitchen!” on it. The fact that the second verse is directed towards others makes it hateful, where the first is legitimately protected speech.

Note that I make this argument without reference to its ability to disrupt class, and that’s because, as I mentioned, I’m not sure that I agree that that’s a legitimate function of the educational system. New and radical ideas are supposed to provoke change. And they’re supposed to make people think, and maybe, if racism or sexism or heterosexism are the norm at your high school, and it’s radical to challenge that, you should be disrupting the educational process of your school. So I’m conflicted, but ultimately think that hate speech laws are generally good.

What do you think?

Free Speech, ACLU, GLBT, Hate Speech

Free Speech, ACLU, GLBT, Hate Speech

I saw this article at the Family Equality Council Blog, and thought it would make a good follow up to my post earlier about assimilation, if nothing else than as a counter-point. Plus, it speaks to one of my favorite topics, which is the language used to describe various political functions.

As you know, Valentine’s Day (Today!) is also Freedom to Marry Day, which describes itself as a “gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide.” But they stress that, although allowing GLBT folks to get married is one of the aims, they’d prefer you not describe the political movement as one to “win gay marriage. Why? Simple. As Evan Wolfson, the executive director, explains,

Same-sex couples, their kids and loved ones, and those of us who favor equal justice in America are not working to win “gay marriage.” We are working to win the freedom to marry, ending the current unfair denial of marriage to those who are already doing the work of marriage in their own lives.

Phrases such as “gay marriage” or “same-sex marriage” imply that same-sex couples are asking for something other than marriage. They imply that same-sex couples deserve something different or lesser than the security, protections, safety-net, and respect that married couples cherish. And they play into the right-wing’s fear-mongering that gay people are a threat to marriage, that equality and inclusion would somehow unacceptably “redefine” the law (in a country dedicated to those very values), and that “Defense of Marriage” is the answer to committed couples seeking to participate in a precious institution.

Marriage is not defined by who is excluded from it, and gay people are not the first to challenge its denial. This year we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first court ruling striking down race restrictions on who could marry whom. In Perez v. Sharp, the California Supreme Court held that “the essence of the right to marry is freedom to join in marriage with the person of one’s choice.” The court explained that “human beings are bereft of worth and dignity by a doctrine that would make them as interchangeable as trains”; when you are denied the freedom to marry the person precious and irreplaceable to you, it’s not like you can just catch the next one.

I think he makes a persuasive argument; do you?

GLBT, marriage, gay marriage, freedom to marry week, valentine’s day, marriage equality

GLBT, marriage, gay marriage, freedom to marry week, valentine’s day, marriage equality

In the past few years, as the debate about GLBT politics has shifted from ideological questions about whether GLBT people really are different to more practical concerns like marriage equality and tax burdens, a question has risen from formerly more radical folks: is assimiliation really the right path, or does it mean giving up on the right to be different and free that was the fight in the first place?

Clarence Patterson, the acting executive director of the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, in an article called “The Endless Game Between Homophobes and Assimilationist Gays” on Alternet, says yes. I thought his opinion was particularly well stated, so here’s the bulk of it:

With respect to the marginalization of lesbians and gay men, when the layers of rhetoric around the oppression are peeled back, they reveal a similar strain of guilt/confusion/envy/repulsion among homophobes and heterosexists. At its root, anti-Queer sentiment is based in a visceral sense that what we do is wrong and distasteful. Our staunchest opponents do not care about nor are they compelled by how much we love each other, how successfully we raise our children, or how dutifully we pay our taxes, or how we serve the public good in numerous other ways. In the final analysis, they just think we’re nasty.

Anti-Queer arguments based in religion, culture and the creation of children are all smoke screens to cover up something that’s really very base: disgust. Trying to rationalize and cover up disgust with other excuses merely serves to justify the perpetuation of political, social and physical violence against Queer communities. But if we pay attention to the messages from the LGBTQQI movement — particularly the messages we send ourselves — it would appear that we have forgotten that our marginalization is based in others’ discomfort around our sexuality, and we’ve responded by not talking about our sexuality and instead talking about love.

Love isn’t the answer when Queers are being accused of recruiting, contaminating, enticing and luring more and more people into the mysteries and ecstasies of our sexual depravity. Love isn’t the answer when the media and public respond with hysteria that there are “men on the down-low” as though it’s a new, dangerous dynamic peculiar to only African-American men as opposed to all of the closeted masses. Love isn’t the answer when we’re accused of threatening the “institution” of marriage — an enterprise with a 50 percent success rate — or held partially responsible for bringing about terrorist attacks …

The answer is sexual freedom, in which self-expression and fluidity in sexuality is seen as enriching and valuable, not nasty.

This idea that professing love isn’t the right answer seems especially fitting given that it’s Valentine’s Day and everyone is focused on how just to profess their love the best. But Patterson goes on to argue that “We must not lose sight of the fact that the Queer struggle is rooted in exploding the strictures on sexual freedom in America. The fear of us is the fear of an America in which every adult is free to find sexual satisfaction with the consenting adult of their choice in whatever manner they choose. We would do well to remain clear about the motivations of our enemies when we go up against them — and respond by denying our nastiness, not just proclaiming our love. They certainly have not forgotten.”

What do you think? Is assimilation selling out? Is focusing on love instead of sex the wrong way to achieve acceptance?

GLBT, Homophobia, Assimilation

GLBT, Homophobia, Assimilation

I don’t even really read Page Six, the gossip column that’s so famous, mostly because their writing is so tongue in cheek that it’s hard to understand and I hate blind items with a passion, but this series of articles, highlighted by Mombian, is just scary. “EVIL LESBIAN MOM LEFT TODDLER TO DIE SLOW DEATH: DA”? Seriously? Or their newest affront towards GLBT folks and those who suipport them: “AXIS OF SHE-VIL:
DEATH TO GAYS BUT FREE OPS FOR IRANI TRANNIES”? The bigotry is disgusting, uncalled for, and just bad journalism, and Mombian has some good tips on how to tell the NY Post your feelings on the matter.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that journalism founded on sensationalism reinforces bigotry, but ick.

NY Post, GLBT Discrimination, Politics, Journalism, Media

NY Post, GLBT Discrimination, Politics, Journalism, Media

When I was a first year in college, I debated on a topic about Title VII, which is the part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. On the affirmative (where you had to advocate increasing protection for more people against employment discrimination), we advocated the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, in its 1998 form, which, unfortunately, still hasn’t passed almost a decade later. But during these debates, people would constantly make the argument that GLBT people didn’t need to be protected from employment discrimination because, as a group, GLBT demographics - and gay men specifically - make a lot of money.

It’s obviously an offensive argument, and one that’s died out at least in some part in the last decade, but seeing this article made me think of that slight, and wonder at the positive possibilities of economic identity for GLBT folks as a whole.

In “Ten Money Questions for Chance Mitchell and Justin Nelson,” the first question Nina of Queercents asks is, “Why does the LGBT community need an economic identity?” I really enjoyed what Mitchell and Nelson, co-founders of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, had to say:

Whether we like it or not, money moves the world. Economics help create social change, not just with corporate leaders, but with local, state and federal governments. The LGBT community is estimated to have had a combined buying power of $660 billion dollars in 2007 and that number will grow to $835 billion dollars by 2010. As a point of reference, these numbers closely follow the buying power of the African American and Hispanic American communities. By leveraging the economic identity of the LGBT community through pocketbook advocacy, we have the ability to create significant change.

Just because Congress doesn’t want to formalize anti-discrimination laws doesn’t mean that poeple can’t do something, which gives me some hope. Mitchell and Nelson had this to say on that subject:

6. How can queer business owners leverage the economics of equality?
When legislators are looking at making decisions, the first people they look to are their constituents. Of their constituents, the first they look to are the business owners – how much revenue are these businesses bringing into the community; how many people are they employing; how many people receive their healthcare through these businesses. The LGBT community has always been very socially active and we have always owned businesses. What we haven’t done it leverage our positions as part of the small business engine that makes the American economy run. Only recently are people realizing that they can and should leverage their businesses to create change. Call your representatives – both state and federal. Make sure that they know what is important to you – not just on issues of importance to your business, but on issues of social concern.

Still not a reason not to pass a law, but a good interim set of steps, I think. The whole article is here.

GLBT, Finance, Employment Non-Discrimination Act, ENDA, National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce

GLBT, Finance, Employment Non-Discrimination Act, ENDA, National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce