Interview with Ellen Kahn, Director of the HRC Family Project

I’m very pleased to present a special feature today: an interview with Ellen Kahn, Director of the Human Rights Campaign Family Project. Ellen took time from her work at HRC (and her two children) to answer a few questions about the Family Project’s accomplishments in 2006 and what they have in store for 2007 and beyond.

Although many of us rightly associate HRC with the fight for marriage equality, the Family Project is also launching a campaign to show how LGBT parents can help fill the shortage of foster and adoptive homes, continuing to develop their “Healthcare Equality Index,” creating a “Welcoming Schools” curriculum, and working with HRC’s political team to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Ellen discusses these initiatives below and offers some general advice for prospective LGBT parents. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Ellen!

For the benefit of those who aren’t familiar with the Family Project per se, would you summarize its particular role within HRC?

The Family Project is housed in HRC’s Foundation, the public education and outreach division of HRC, along with the Religion and Faith Project, Workplace Project, Coming Out Project, HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Project, and the new HRC Research Center.

The Family Project is primarily focused on raising public awareness both within the GLBT community and beyond, regarding issues of primary concern to our families. For example, we address partner recognition (domestic partnerships, civil unions, marriage); the myriad issues related to GLBT parenting; and issues that emerge within the aging GLBT community, with the essential message that equality and inclusion are morally right and fair not just for our own families, but for all families. We provide education via our website, which is a very comprehensive resource and remains a highly utilized tool by thousands of people, but we also host community forums, participate in conferences, write articles for magazines and journals, and engage in meetings with a wide variety of audiences all over the country.

What is your high-level vision for the Family Project, i.e. what are the big strategic goals?

The big strategic goal: All families are fully accepted and integrated in all aspects of American society, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. Breaking that down a bit, we want to achieve full legal equality for our families, achieve equal access and treatment in public and private institutions, and help shape favorable public opinion regarding GLBT families. All of these pieces are interrelated, and will happen through consistent work and small steps in the right direction.

As we near the end of 2006, would you tell me a little about what the Family Project has accomplished this year, as well as what HRC has done generally that affects LGBT families?

We focused a lot of our energy and resources in 2006 in building relationships with key partners in the world of child welfare. In December of 2005, we convened a meeting with all of the national child welfare organizations to map out a strategy for defeating legislation that would limit or ban GLBT people from becoming foster or adoptive parents. Although many GLBT-identified organizations address this legislative issue, it became apparent that the voices of “mainstream” organizations would be a key ingredient to succeeding. After all, when conservative lawmakers hear from the Child Welfare League of America that there simply are not enough families for the number of children in need of a permanent home, there is not much room to argue about the “morality” of same-sex parenting.

Building on that meeting, we recently brought together a national advisory group comprised of adoption professionals from across the U.S. to map out a plan for increasing opportunities for GLBT folks to become foster or adoptive parents. We identified two primary goals: first, to increase GLBT cultural competence across the child welfare profession, and second, to develop innovative outreach initiatives to help engage our community in helping to end the child welfare crisis. A new campaign, “All Children—All Families,” will officially launch shortly after the new year, which will help to raise awareness of these issues in both public and private adoption agencies, as well as to raise the public profile of GLBT foster/adoptive parents who can help to encourage others to step up and help a child.

We also launched the “Healthcare Equality Index,” a new project that will measure hospitals, long-term care facilities, community health clinics, hospices, and other sectors of the healthcare industry on policies and practices that affect GLBT consumers. Last month we sent surveys to the 1000 largest hospitals in the U.S., and will soon send the survey to another 2000 hospitals. Through this first phase of the project we will assess and then report on the “state of GLBT Healthcare,” and beyond that report we will begin publishing the actual scores for hospitals and other institutions, similar to the Corporate Equality Index. We believe this index will revolutionize the way the healthcare industry relates to GLBT patients and our families, pushing the industry to implement inclusive policies, to better train their employees, and to become more responsive to the specific needs of our community.

What are the specific projects you’ll be tackling in 2007?

In addition to the public education element of the HRC Family Project, we are committed to influencing GLBT family-friendly policies within key institutions. Currently, we are working within the healthcare industry, the child welfare profession, and elementary education. The model for our work in these three areas differs a bit, but there are similar elements. First, we have established strong relationships with key leaders and experts within these fields, helping to build a coalition (small “c”) approach to creating measurable changes that will have a positive impact on our lives. By engaging with and learning from the experts in child welfare, for example, we can find the common ground and the shared principles related to adoption and foster care by GLBT folks, and we can bring our respective resources to bear on efforts to raise practice standards and open doors for more families to adopt. We are making excellent progress in these areas and look forward to sharing more with you as we proceed.

In 2007 we will be moving into the full launch of the All Children—All Families campaign, and we’ll be moving into the next phase of the Healthcare Equality Index. In addition, we are working closely with a fabulous group of folks in Boston who developed a “Welcoming Schools” guide, which is a comprehensive tool specifically for elementary school administrators, teachers, and counselors. With more and more children being raised by GLBT parents, it is imperative that schools across this country examine their policies, curriculum, and the overall environment to insure that our children feel safe, supported and included. HRC Family Project will be building on this guide by creating a corresponding website, regional teacher trainings, and on-line learning opportunities. We hope to pilot the Welcoming Schools curriculum in several school districts beginning September, 2007, and we are delighted to have a team of experienced educators on board, ad well as support from the National Education Association and other professional organizations, to insure success!!

We’ll also be working closely with HRC’s political team to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. We will raise public awareness of the fact that in 33 states you can be fired because you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, and that civil rights protections need to apply to our community in order to insure an equal playing field for all working people, whether they are corporate executives, truck drivers, or secretaries. We will sponsor public forums at which real people can tell real stories about workplace discrimination, and help fair-minded Americans understand that this legislation is good for all families legislation is good for families.

Have we as a community become too focused on marriage equality? Are there other rights and issues that should be getting more attention?

I don’t think we can be too focused on marriage equality when the President supports a federal marriage amendment, and when state after state is faced with ballot initiatives of legislation that can have a profound impact on our lives. Sure, there are other pressing issues—safe schools legislation, hate crimes, don’t ask—don’t tell, adoption and parenting, etc., but marriage equality is a key issue and is certainly not going away. We may see more openness to civil unions, as witnessed in New Jersey, which is perhaps a stepping stone to full marriage equality and should be viewed as a “good thing,” but we are entitled to the 1,138 benefits and entitlements that come with federal marriage.

How does the Family Project coordinate with its partner organizations and the multitude of state and local LGBT-rights groups on their LGBT-family initiatives? What is it that you bring to the table?

HRC is part of a large coalition of GLBT organizations, and there is communication and planning that occurs among the organizations to insure that we are not working in opposition to one another, and that we can maximize the impact of our respective resources (expertise, money, constituents, etc.) on the overall movement for full equality. HRC Family Project has strong relationships with state and local GLBT organizations and groups across the U.S., and will continue to reach out and build upon these. For example, we are working closely with Equality Florida to pass legislation that would “loosen” the ban on GLBT adoption by allowing judges to grant adoption petitions on a case-by-case basis. This legislation did not make it out of the House in 2006, but with a slightly revised political landscape in Florida, and public opinion continually moving in our favor, we are eager to try again to bring Florida out of the dark ages.

Monetary donations are obviously critical to making HRC work. What else can the LGBT community and our allies do to advance the cause of LGBT rights, even after we’ve made our fiscal contributions? In particular, what can parents, whose spare time is limited, do?

As a parent of two young children I know how hard it is to find the time, and the money, to help the cause. I believe very strongly that by being open and honest about who you are, and by talking about your family with other people, you are helping to change the hearts and minds among people who will vote on issues like marriage equality, adoption, employment discrimination. If you are comfortable taking a more formal role, you can connect with the Family Pride Coalition and become part of their speaker’s bureau. There are many ways that you can contribute to the cause of GLBT rights, but you have to figure out what best fits your current life situation. But first and foremost, just be who you are and participate in your community—that is activism!

What advice would you give to an LGBT individual or couple embarking on parenthood right now?

That’s a big one. Before coming to HRC I spent many years developing Maybe Baby groups and parenting support programs for the DC area GLBT community. I absolutely loved that work, and I still try to do as much of this work as possible through the Rainbow Families/DC network. The culture of GLBT parenting has changed quite a bit since I first put my toe in the water—initially the focus was primarily on “how to” become a parent, the actual ABC’s of starting a family.

While it is still imperative to have a full understanding of the “ABCs,”—to explore all options and to understand the impact of your decisions, I think there is a pressing need for prospective GLBT parents to think about how “out” they are in their lives, and to understand that having a child forces you to be out in every aspect of your life and you have to be ready for that. You also have to think about how you will talk to your children about what it means to have same-sex parents, and to talk honestly about the particular way in which the child came into your life, e.g. donor insemination, adoption, surrogacy, and to read about these issues and to understand that parenting is much more than a “right,” but it is a huge responsibility and there are, indeed, some unique issues that our children will face and it is up to us to provide them the strongest foundation for facing these issues as they develop.