It’s Martha Stewart’s birthday. I’ve always been pretty neutral on Martha: admiring her as a powerful businesswoman but never really getting into her obsessive domesticity. And no, she’s not to my knowledge a lesbian, though I’ve heard the occasional, perhaps wishful, rumor.
I mention her birthday here for two reasons. The Kids section of her Web site has some fun ideas for kids’ activities, including an underwater viewer, six types of ice pops, and various musical instruments, such as a bottle-cap tambourine and a matchbook guitar.
The second reason is that her site also has Kids & Babies message boards. I think one way we can raise the visibility of LGBT parents is to post on message boards of mainstream parenting sites (in addition to LGBT-specific ones). We don’t even necessarily have to write about LGBT issues. Simply saying “When my partner and I organized our son’s third birthday party, she made a really great chocolate cake. . .” can chip away at barriers while we share our recipes. No, this won’t convert the hard-core right, but it may help gain the support of the wavering center.