The ACLU launched Get Busy, Get Equal, a toolkit building and protecting the rights of LGBT people. ExxonMobil shareholders voted down a resolution to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the company’s non-discrimination statement. Before Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999, Mobil had provided these protections to gay employees and benefits to their same-sex […]
New York Gov. David A. Paterson has told all state agencies that marriages of same-sex couples from other jurisdictions “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.” He failed, however, in his attempt to make all couples wearing Red Sox paraphernalia don pinstripes before being recognized, after a strongly worded memo
My son and I were watching the French Open today. Last weekend, we caught some English soccer (aka “football”), and we regularly watch the Red Sox, especially when my dad’s around. I know Helen and I have made an effort to expose our son to professional sports as well as getting him involved in playing
Here are a few recent items of interest for children of LGBT parents, and one (mostly) for children of non-LGBT parents: The 2002 film Our House: A Very Real Documentary About Kids of Gay & Lesbian Parents has been re-released on DVD. I haven’t seen it myself, but Abigail Garner recommends it, and that’s good
(Reposting this in honor of Memorial Day. Originally published in Bay Windows, January 10, 2008) Five-year-old William and three-year-old Ryan are the children of decorated U.S. Army officer Cheryl Parker. Like other children of service members, they have dealt with cross-country moves and months without their mother while she was deployed in Iraq. Unlike the
Just in time for Memorial Day, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a district court decision in the case of an Air Force major discharged for being a lesbian. It ruled “the government may only ‘intrude upon the personal and private lives of homosexuals’ to ‘advance an important governmental interest,’ such as maintaining troop
MP’s in the U.K. today defeated a proposed addition to the Government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have required fertility clinics to consider a child’s “need for a father” before providing services to lesbians and single women. Clinics are required to consider the “welfare of the [potential] child”, but the new bill says
First, let’s revisit some good news about parental rights: Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) is the New England LGBT legal organization best known for its leading role in achieving marriage equality for same-sex couples in Massachusetts. Mary Bonauto, Civil Rights Project Director for GLAD, was also lead counsel in Goodridge v. Dept. of
(Originally published in Bay Windows, May 15, 2008.) “It’s the book I wish I’d read when I was 13,” says Vermont writer Jennifer McMahon about her new young adult book, My Tiki Girl (Dutton/Penguin: May 2008). “I wish I had a time machine to send it back to my 13-year-old self. When I fell in
