Two sets of parents in Lexington, Massachusetts are appealing a U.S. District Court dismissal of their claim that the local public school district violated their constitutional rights by teaching their children about families headed by same-sex parents. The District Court judge had said (PDF link): Public schools are entitled to teach anything that is reasonably […]
This week’s Family Voices interview is with lesbian moms Rachel and Sandy, who live in Washington state with their four children and co-parent with the biological dad of three of them. Below, they talk about their successful efforts to create safer schools and influence politicians, the benefits of co-parenting, being an egg donor to another
Evan Wolfson, Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, offered his perspective on Marriage Equality and the Presidential Election. The ultra-conservative Arkansas Family Council has submitted a proposal to the state Attorney General as the first step in placing a measure on the November 2008 ballot to ban adoption by unmarried couples. The group failed earlier
Did the concept of a civil union originate in medieval Europe? That’s the intriguing possibility raised in the respected Journal of Modern History by Allan A. Tulchin of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. (Via Box Turtle Bulletin.) As a recovering academic with a graduate degree in medieval history, I find this fascinating—though I’ve got the usual
(Originally published in Bay Windows, August 23, 2007.) “I just keep having this desire to do work that seems impossible,” says Dr. Abbie Goldberg of her research on LGBT and other understudied families. The assistant professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester is passionate about delving into these areas few other social scientists have
In my last post, I wrote about the very cool new Google Sky and how it could be a fun way to teach kids about astronomy. As an astronomy major myself, and someone who is married to an engineer, I’m all for science education, particularly for girls, who still tend to be overlooked when it
My partner and I took our son to his first baseball game this past weekend. It was a minor-league game, since we figured that at four years old, his attention span might not last a full nine innings, even with Cracker Jacks and ice cream. (We were right, despite the attraction of the grinning-baseball mascot.)
Proving the importance of a good copyeditor, lawmakers in Arkansas passed a law this year that mistakenly allows state residents of any age—even babies—to marry with parental permission, as long as they are not pregnant. The bill says: “In order for a person who is younger than eighteen (18) years of age and who is
New Jersey dominated the headlines this week, but there’s also good news from Oklahoma, a celebrity marriage in Canada, and some items of bad news from round and about to remind us why we need to keep fighting. On a lighter note, if you haven’t yet seen the Daily Show’s take on the HRC/LOGO Presidential
For the past two months, I’ve posted Family Voices, a series of interviews with LGBT families from around the country. The families volunteered because of their involvement in the Family Pride Coalition’s OUTSpoken Families program, and their commitment to speaking with their local communities and media about their lives and the need for LGBT equality.
