I’m a sometimes-disgruntled Windows user with an iPad and an Android phone . . . but I applaud Microsoft for including DOMA challenger Edie Windsor (as well as out lesbian super-swimmer Diana Nyad) in its video “Celebrating the Heroic Women of 2013.” Watch below.
Here are some of the LGBT parent happenings over the past few weeks while we’ve been celebrating the holidays.
This past year has been full of events—positive and negative — that have impacted the struggle for equality of LGBT parents and our children. Here are some highlights.
The LGBT news from around the world keeps getting worse. The Ugandan Parliament today passed a bill that criminalizes the “promotion” of “homosexuality” and can lead to life imprisonment for those convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.” Several other countries have had similar recent news.
This just in: A federal district court judge has ruled that it is unconstitutional for Utah to prevent same-sex couples from marrying.
New Mexico makes 17! Yesterday, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of marriage equality, making 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that allow same-sex couples to wed — eight states in 2013 alone. All of the plaintiff couples in the case are parents. But in our celebrations of the Land of Enchantment, we should take a moment to remember one mom who was fighting for marriage there while she was fighting for her life.
A Catholic educators’ group responsible for developing Catholic school curricula based on the Common Core State Standards has removed three books from its first-grade plan because they include same-sex and/or divorced parents.
This holiday season, GLAAD is organizing a campaign to help both LGBT families and allies send a copy of their family’s holiday card to the governors of anti-equality states, with a note saying that all families should be treated equally. It’s a great idea that could have a big impact.
The Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled that a child can have two parents of the same sex, even if they have not done a second-parent adoption. This is good news—but behind it is yet another case of a biological mother trying to deny parental rights to a nonbiological mother.
Today is Bill of Rights Day, commemorating the day the first ten amendments to the Constitution came into effect. President Obama, in his proclamation of the event, spoke obliquely but to my mind undoubtedly about equality for LGB people. This, on a day to honor what he called “the foundation of American liberty, securing our most fundamental rights” is a significant statement.
