Lesbian and gay servicemembers with children face additional pressures under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” explain Daniel Redman and Ilona Turner at The Nation. Servicemembers may hesitate to get involved in custody battles for their children because doing so would reveal them as gay or lesbian and get them dismissed under DADT. If they try to marry […]
Politics and Law Equality Florida gave this year’s Voice For Equality Award to Martin Gill, the gay father whose case brought down the state’s anti-gay adoption law. Equality Florida executive director Nadine Smith also announced that she and her spouse are expecting a child next May. Congratulations to all! The U.S. Supreme Court refused to
(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column, October 25, 2010.) Gay dads Mitchell and Cameron of ABC’s Modern Family were looking for a preschool for their daughter Lily in the October 20 episode of the hit series. Mitchell was worried that a failure to get into the “right” preschool would have a negative impact on
What’s going on with the ban on openly gay servicemembers? Don’t ask. On Thursday, results from the upcoming Pentagon report on the impact of a repeal leaked to the Washington Post. The good news is that the ban could be repealed “with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts.” Then
New results from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), the longest-running and largest study of American lesbian families, has found that the among the 78 17-year-old children of lesbian mothers in the study, none report having ever been physically or sexually abused by a parent or other caregiver. This contrasts with 26% of American adolescents who report parent or caregiver physical abuse and 8.3% who report sexual abuse.
(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column, October 13, 2010.) Children in the LGBTQ community are dying. As LGBTQ parents, we need to be on the front lines working to help them. We’ve all heard by now of the string of suicides by youth bullied because they were LGBTQ or perceived to be. Children of
PBS’ POV (Point of View) show is streaming three films about adoption through December 7—including Nicole Opper’s documentary Off and Running, which tells the story of Avery, an African American teen who had been adopted as an infant by two Jewish lesbians. She also has two adopted brothers, one who is black and Puerto Rican, and
A few days ago, I mentioned the post over at Nerdy Apple Bottom about a mom’s support of her son when he wanted to dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo for Halloween—and a few weeks ago, I posted about the mom who wrote My Princess Boy: A mom’s story about a young boy who
A reader wrote to ask if I knew of any books for young children that discussed getting a new sibling—but which did not feature a mom and a dad for parents. Great question. The answer is that (to the best of my knowledge) there is one, And Baby Makes 4 by Judith Benjamin. (Don’t confuse
Here are a few highlights from the surfeit of political news and analysis this week: David Cicilline (D-RI) became the fourth openly gay member of Congress, joining Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Jared Polis (D-CO), who each also won reelection. Lisa Keen writes about the more than 100 other openly gay candidates who
