Here’s a great new children’s book that is unrelated to anything LGBT except insofar as my son has been enjoying it: Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea, by Caldecott honoree Steve Jenkins (What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?, Actual Size), is a beautiful work that takes the […]
A very many congratulations to Mayor E. Denise Simmons of Cambridge, Mass., and her partner Mattie B. Hayes, who will wed on August 30. Mayor Simmons is the country’s first out, lesbian, African American mayor. She is also the mother of four and grandmother of three, and is raising her grandchildren. I’m thinking I could
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division hired Matt Nosanchuk, a former Senate staffer and advisor to Barack Obama’s campaign, as a senior counselor who will serve as a representative to the LGBT community. Leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) voted to lift its ban on noncelibate lesbian and gay pastors and to
“Children of same-sex couples are as likely to make normal progress through school as the children of most other family structures. . . . To the extent that normal progress through primary school is a useful and valid measure of child development, the results confirm that children of same-sex couples appear to have no inherent
Diane Silver’s piece “Children suffer when the religious right wins,” in the Gay and Lesbian Times is worth a read. She writes of the relief she felt when her son Tony turned 18, relief in knowing no one could take him away from her. She is Tony’s non-biological mom, and almost lost him to her
Helen and I share viewer comments on favorite Disney films, tackle neighbors’ assumptions about lesbians and men, and discuss two picture books we’ve enjoyed recently. One is Patricia Polacco’s In Our Mothers’ House, a new book for older elementary students that features an interracial lesbian family. The other, Tacky the Penguin, is an older book
Politics and Law The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled to preserve an adoption by the state’s only openly gay or lesbian legislator. Sen. Julia Boseman’s (D-New Hanover) former partner, Melissa Jarrell, the biological mother, was trying to deny Boseman’s parental rights, although a separate court had earlier approved the couple’s request for Boseman’s second-parent
It’s back-to-school time for many of our children. For those of you, like me, prepping our kids and ourselves for the transition: What are you looking forward to about having your kids in school? What are you dreading (or at least not looking forward to)? If your kids are not yet in school, or you
I’ve written many times before about the excellence of the LGBT-inclusive diversity-education films by Groundspark, the organization headed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Debra Chasnoff. (Here’s my interview of Chasnoff about her latest film, Straightlaced, and an earlier one about the 10th anniversary of It’s Elementary.) Now comes the happy news that trailers for all of
The Department of Justice today filed its reply brief in Smelt v. United States, one of the legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act. Things look cautiously promising: With respect to the merits, this Administration does not support DOMA as a matter of policy, believes that it is discriminatory, and supports its repeal. Consistent
