If there’s one thing almost all parents will agree on, it’s that parenting takes time. No matter how well-behaved our children, and how accommodating our partners, there is hardly a mom or dad around who would say she or he has more time now than before becoming a parent. One of the effects of this, for the LGBT community, is that those who have one of the strongest reasons to fight for LGBT rights have the least time to do so. Becoming a parent doesn’t have to mean abandoning activism, though. With a little creativity and a dash of technology, we can find many quick ways to continue our contributions to the cause. Here are some ideas.
E-mail your politicians. Technology makes it easy to be a vocal constituent. Enter your elected officials’ names into your favorite search engine to find their Web sites and e-mail addresses. If you don’t know their names, use the non-partisan Congress.org to look them up by zip code. You can also sign up with the major national and state LGBT advocacy organizations to receive action alerts by e-mail. These often have links so you can click through to pre-written messages and send them off without needing to compose your own. If you prefer to write your own, of course, you can simply use the alerts as reminders to do so. The Family Pride Coalition’s Speaker’s Toolkit offers many useful tips for composing effective messages to politicians (as well as to newspapers and other media). I urge you to download and read it if you will be writing your own e-mails rather than using the pre-made ones.
Comment on parenting blogs and forums. Many of us already read LGBT parenting blogs or online forums. Go a step further, however, and comment on general parenting blogs, such as Babble and ParentDish. Offer an LGBT perspective on posts that might not be explicitly about LGBT issues, but which you feel have an LGBT angle, e.g., ones about adoption or financial planning. Be active on comment threads about general parenting topics (diapers, time management, etc.) to show the commonalities of all parents. Simply include examples using “my partner and I,” with the appropriate pronouns, to ensure LGBT visibility. Finally, if other readers leave negative comments about LGBT families, make sure their remarks are never without positive ones for balance.
Participate in parenting social networks. Social networks are online communities where you can create a personal profile, keep your own blog or journal, upload photos, find other people with similar experiences, and share stories and ideas. Popular parenting networks include AtHomeDad.org, Café Mom, Dad Daily, Maya’s Mom (for moms and dads), Minti, Mothers Click, Mommy Buzz, and Parents Connect. Several also have active LGBT-specific forums within them. Don’t forget the value, though, in stepping out of the LGBT space and being visible in other areas.
Some social networks have very specific aims. Parentography, for example, focuses on places for family travel. Users recommend and review destinations they’ve visited. Again, writing “When my partner and I took our kids to …” helps LGBT visibility, even if there’s otherwise nothing LGBT-specific about the review. You can also mention when venues have been particularly friendly (or not) to LGBT families. Another network, Care Square, connects parents and caregivers such as sitters and nannies. You have an opportunity here to post recommendations for LGBT-friendly caregivers, letting people know this is something to value.
Write reviews of LGBT-positive children’s books. The major online booksellers let users rate and write reviews of books they’ve read. Many LGBT-inclusive children’s books have negative reviews by people who don’t think kids should learn about LGBT families. Write reviews saying that you believe otherwise. Of course, if the book is badly written, say that too, but be clear your criticism is about its literary merit and not its choice of subject matter. You can even make this an ongoing project, and write one review per week or per month until you’ve gone through your bookshelf.
It is wise to keep a few things in mind when writing for the Web: Be brief. No one wants to read through a feature-length essay when they expect a short forum comment. Stay on topic. Don’t go on about LGBT marriage rights when responding to a blog post about brands of diapers. Be courteous. Take the high road if discussion gets nasty. If you resort to name calling, you still won’t convince the ultra-conservatives, and you might lose respect among those whose minds you could change.
In this vein, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to spend a lot of time responding to far-right blogs and forums. Debate there often descends into name-calling, or at best, deadlock. Our personal efforts are better directed at swaying the minds of the undecided, unaware, or willing to listen (though we should also support the organizations fighting the far-right in legislatures and courts).
Despite the many things we can do online, however, the most important action we can take to contribute to the cause of LGBT rights, even on parent time, is simply to be visible in our local communities. A conversation at the playground or soccer practice, or a thoughtful comment at a PTA meeting can go a long way to building bridges.
(Originally published with slight variation as my Mombian newspaper column.)
Thank you Dana for a vitamin-and-mineral-packed meal, here! Lots of great ideas. I quite agree with your last point, about leaving hate-filled forums to stew in their own juice, and saving the efforts for open-minded, good-hearted folks who simply don’t know enough about their LGBT neighbors and relatives.
One parent, one conversation at a time. That kind of bridge will be solid and durable for generations to come.