Amtrak has just launched a lovely new advertising campaign featuring lesbian moms and gay dads. The company has marketed to the LGBT community for several years, but chugs into new territory with its latest two ads that focus on same-sex parents.
Please welcome to the blogosphere Charlotte and Betsy, who recently launched one of the best-titled blogs I’ve seen in a while: Turkey Baster and Bottle of Wine. Their subtitle clarifies: “On being a queer, non-gestational parent.”
(The following is a guest post from Meg, who works on the Children’s TYLENOL® brand team at McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Division of McNEIL-PPC, Inc. In this post, she writes about her thoughts on the brand’s support of LGBT families and what it means to her as a lesbian.)
My wife and I just bought our first home together, nestled in Cherry Hill, NJ. It’s been a lengthy process moving in, with its ups and downs, a ton of boxes, and weeks of unpacking, but every moment has been worth it. For both of us, it is such a monumental point in our lives. And now we’ve reached the stage in our journey where we’re considering starting a family.
(The following is a guest post from Brent Wright, father of two and Director of Programs at Family Equality Council, a nonprofit organization that connects, supports, and represents the one million parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender in this country and the two million children they are raising.)
I truly believe that we are all the sum part of all our childhood experiences. Every backyard BBQ and schoolyard tussle—every campout under the stars and timeout in the principal’s office—every childhood friendship and teenaged broken heart.
Tomorrow, July 28, marks the start of Family Week, the annual event in Provincetown, Mass. hosted by the Family Equality Council for LGBT families and our children. I won’t be there in person this year, alas, but in honor of the event, I’ll be bringing you two special guest posts next week.
My son loves his stuffed bear in a way that makes me hope that when he’s older, he marries someone he loves just as much. (The bear, I suspect, may be his best man.) I was therefore touched by a heart-warming story in early June about a Boston transit worker who stopped a train in order to rescue a little girl’s stuffed bunny that had fallen onto the tracks. I saw the story on several mainstream news channels, including the NBC Nightly News—but I somehow didn’t make the connection that the family involved was that of lesbian moms Casey and Michelle and their daughter Roozle, whose adventures Casey chronicles at Life with Roozle.
She broke barriers, sonic and otherwise, when she flew into orbit as the first American woman in space. She broke another when she died of pancreatic cancer yesterday, at age 61, and her family let it be known that “Dr. Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy.”
Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll responded to accusations that she had an affair with a female aide by stating, “Usually black women that look like me don’t engage in relationships like that.” Responses from the LGBT community have been both strong and clever.
LGBT parenting memoirs are few and far between. You’d think any publisher’s marketing and design team would take the time to investigate what’s already been done. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to take drastic measures here and declare a moratorium on LGBT parenting memoir covers with blue gradient backgrounds, all-lowercase white titles, and Ken dolls.
Felix Bermea, his partner Roy, and their four children have been harassed in their hometown of Gilbert, Arizona for almost three months. It started with epithets scrawled on their house and car, led to someone setting their bushes on fire, and has escalated to a home break in and vandalization of the children’s furniture. The children are afraid, and the parents are afraid for them. Now, the Family Equality Council wants to do the family a kindness and send them, free of charge, to the organization’s annual Family Week in Provincetown. But they need our help.
