LGBTQ Parenting Roundup

Let’s end the week with a roundup of a few things I haven’t covered yet—family stories, some political bits, and school-related news!

“We’re Queer Parents But Our Kids Are Pretty Heteronormative,” writes Caitlin Crawshaw for Canada’s CBC. It’s a great piece on the messages the kids of LGBTQ parents receive despite our best efforts to tell them their origin stories early and expose them to LGBTQ-inclusive picture books and children’s media, of which there still isn’t enough.
Stephanie Coontz writes in the New York Times about what heterosexual couples can learn from same-sex ones. She cites one recent study that found “Children living with same-sex parents experienced, on average, three and a half hours of parenting time per day, compared with two and a half for children living with a heterosexual couple.”
Tosca Langbert, who grew up with two dads, explains in the Harvard Business Review why “The Gayby Boom is Here to Stay.”
“I’m Sikh, Bisexual And A Dad – And Still Figuring Out What It Means To Be All Three,” writes Deep Singh at HuffPo Australia. While he’s doing so, he’s trying to be a role model for others.

The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a three-hour hearing on religious exemption laws that allow taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others. Speakers included Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), who shared his own experience adopting as a gay dad; Rev. Stan Sloan, executive director of Family Equality; and Ernesto Olivares, a member of the Every Child Deserves a Family Campaign’s LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit Foster Alumni Team; Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the HRC; and several allied members of Congress.
Such laws can have a very real impact on children finding homes, as several families in Tennessee attest, reports NBC News.
The Democrat-controlled Colorado Legislature, however, made short work of voting down bills that would have allowed just that kind of discrimination in child services; made it a crime for health care professionals to provide transition-related care to transgender minors; and banned marriage for same-sex couples.
The Israeli Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a law banning same-sex couples and single men from accessing surrogacy services must be changed or eliminated.

A middle school in Minnesota is facing controversy after a rainbow flag was included in a display of flags representing students’ backgrounds, reports the Marshall Independent. Three school board meetings have included people speaking up both in support of the flag and against it. Personally, I think Kelly Holstine, director of educational equity for OutFront Minnesota, had it right in saying that state and federal law “require that LGBTQ students “have safe educational environments that are free of discrimination and harassment. This flag is showing tangible support toward those humans, and there is no law that supports the claim that people’s First Amendment Rights are being harmed by flying this flag.”
A teacher in Michigan told a teen with two moms that she could not write a speech about marriage equality because it might “offend somebody in the class,” reports LGBTQ Nation. The school district is investigating.
After a parent challenged a school library’s inclusion of Marcus Ewert’s book 10,000 Dresses, about a transgender girl, a school board committee voted to keep the book on the shelves. Their recommendation now goes to the superintendent for his decision.