I’m breaking away from the bullet points for this roundup, and going for the “connected by vague trains of thought” approach. [Updated 8:30 p.m. Added an article by Jessica Cerretani that I’d missed earlier because the Boston Globe screwed up our delivery last Sunday.]
Let’s start with the best news: U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, “which would restrict federal funds for states that discriminate in adoption or foster programs on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation or gender identity.” This would most impact the states with laws against adoption by lesbian and gay people (or “unmarried” people): Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Nebraska and Mississippi. Nancy Polikoff notes the all-important enforcement part of the bill, whereby an individual claiming discrimination could file an action seeking relief in federal court. The bill has no co-sponsors yet.
Polikoff also points out the intriguingly named “Queer Kids of Queer Parents Against Gay Marriage!” Blog authors Jane Kaufman and Katie Miles say:
We know that most families, straight or gay, don’t fit in with the standards for marriage, and see many straight families being penalized for not conforming to the standard the government has set: single moms trying to get on welfare, extended family members trying to gain custody, friends kept from being each other’s legal representatives. We have far more in common with those straight families than we do with the kinds of gay families that would benefit from marriage. We are seeing a gay political agenda become single-issue to focus on marriage and leave behind many very serious issues such as social, economic, and racial justice.
I don’t think they’re entirely off-base. Marriage is not a panacea. At the same time, I think there is still value for many couples in being able to wed, and it would do tremendous damage to the momentum of the LGBT rights movement if we suddenly remove marriage equality from our to-do list.
Here’s an example of bias and confusion over forms of relationship recognition. Moms and partners Shannon Bowman and Martha Daas wanted to join the Mallory Country Club in Virginia so their two kids could swim and play volleyball. The club would only let them join as individuals, however, which would mean they would each pay the $1,000 membership fee and $600 annual fee. If they were married, they would pay only $1600 as a family. The club then voted on whether to extend family memberships to same-sex couples with children. Although a majority of members were in favor, it fell short of the two-thirds needed. One member said that some of the others were not biased, but rather concerned over whether a changed rule would mean unmarried opposite-sex couples would have to be given the discounted rate as well. Clearly, that would mean the end of Western civilization as we know it.
Short of the name marriage, but pretty close in other respects, are domestic partnerships in Washington state. The Seattle Times has an op-ed piece by lesbian mom Amie Bishop, who tells of her 11-year old son testifying in front of the Washington state House Judiciary Committee last February in support of the Domestic Partnership Expansion bill law. She writes:
Our son hadn’t planned to testify that chilly day back in February, but he was moved to speak after hearing what, to his young ears, must have seemed to be a confusing and sometimes hurtful denial of rights to our family. So he took the microphone and had this to say: “Some of you may not think of my family as a family, but I know in my heart that we are. So please pass this bill so everyone will know that this is my family.”
They did. Now, however, domestic partnerships are facing a possible shrinkage of rights if Ref 71 passes in November.
The young children of LGBT parents who speak out have a great emotional impact, but of course, LGBT people have been raising kids for some time now. Jessica Cerretani, the adult daughter of a gay dad, has a charming piece in the Boston Globe magazine about coming out to her boyfriends about having a gay dad. What happens, for example, when you’re a woman dancing with your boyfriend at a birthday party for your dad’s partner, and one of the male guests cuts in—wanting to dance with your boyfriend?
Finally, a big-picture, deep-thoughts read for the week: UC-Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s “The State of Families, Class and Culture” in the New York Times draws connections between family values and economic ones. The last 40 years have seen a transformation in the American family, she argues, “one that bears the deep footprints of a disappearing economic sector and a transformed culture. The shift has hit blue-collar families especially hard.” While surveys show that Americans value marriage more than people in other countries do, we also have the highest divorce and breakup rate in the world. Hochschild blames our consumerist, “market turnover culture.”
Working-class families, where breakups come faster, have suffered a one-two punch. They have absorbed the decline of the industrial sector. They have also been exposed, like the rest of America, to a curiously consumerist approach to love. Paradoxically, those who call for family values also tout the wonders of an unregulated market without observing the subtle cultural links between the family they seek to regulate and the market they hold free.
The recent struggle for gay marriage can remind us all of the value of sustained commitment. So what can we do? In response to our fast-food culture, a “slow food” movement appeared. Out of hurried parenthood, a move toward slow parenting could be growing. With vital government supports for state-of-the-art public child care and paid parental leave, maybe we would be ready to try slow love and marriage.
