LGBT Parenting Roundup

A compilation of what other people have been saying about LGBT families:

Personal stories:

• CNN.com has a must-read article on the perspective of children growing up with gay parents. Thanks to Abigail Garner, one of their interviewees, for the tip. (And if you haven’t read her book, Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is, do get it. I recommend it for all LGBT parents and their teen/adult children.)
• The gay couple who were the first in Britain to have both names on their children’s birth certificates are now expecting their fourth and fifth children. In 1999, the couple used donor eggs and a surrogate mother in the U.S. to have twins, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling the pair could both be named as parents on the children’s birth certificates. They also have a five-year-old son.
• The Washington Post reports on the gay and lesbian families in Prince George’s County, Maryland and the suburbanization of gay and lesbian families generally. Much as I myself am, unbelievably, a suburban-mom dyke and happy with my life, I hope some of us have lifestyles that differ. Variety being the spice, and all that.
• A couple in Sweden is attempting to raise their child (now two-and-a-half years old) without gender norms. They do not use a gendered name or pronouns, and have kept the child’s biological sex a secret. While I’m all for raising a child without gender norms, I also don’t think it is right to teach children that their gender is anything to be kept secret or be ashamed of. Besides, I think all their best intentions will go astray when the child starts school.

School issues:

• Victoria Cruz and Deoine Scott were voted “Best Couple” by their peers at Mott Haven Village Preparatory (Public) High School in the Bronx, the first time in the school’s history a same-sex couple had been chosen (and maybe the first time in Bronx history, too).
• The head of a high school English department in Litchfield, N.H., is quitting after some parents complained about reading assignments issued by another teacher in a class unit called “Love/Gender/Family,” part of an elective English class for juniors and seniors. They objected to stories on “homosexuality, abortion, drugs, and cannibalism,” including I Like Guys by David Sedaris, The Crack Cocaine Diet by Laura Lippman, Survivor Type by Stephen King, and Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway.

Politics and Law:

• Not surprisingly, the Family Research Council has launched a Web site (www.stopjennings.org) to try and stop President Obama’s appointment of Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, as head of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools at the Dept. of Education.
• A lesbian mother in Indiana won a case this week against her parents, who objected to her lesbianism and her new partner’s relationship with the child. The mother eventually denied them access to the child, and they sued for court-ordered visitation. Nancy Polikoff tipped me off to the case, and adds her own analysis of parents’ constitutional rights.

Entertainment:

• In my guest post yesterday at the Washington Post’s On Parenting blog, I noted that children’s stories and shows are saturated with the concept of marriage—meaning marriage of opposite-sex couples. Brett Berk, aka “The Gay Uncle,” points out a new study that proves this, looking at “the role and prevalence of heterosexual romantic love in Disney’s top-grossing G-rated movies from 1990-2005.” I would have loved to do a study like that myself, but I don’t know if I could eat that much popcorn. (For more on Disney and LGBT families, check out my recent piece on Mary Poppins and Prop 8.)