What happened to the ENDA vote Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) said would happen this week? Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) now says she hopes it will happen in the next couple of weeks. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a House committee that Congress should not pass its own repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell before he […]
Last week I discussed the film Mom’s Apple Pie, which documented the role of lesbian moms in the early LGBT rights movement (and is now out on home video). Now comes word of Raising Hell, a half-hour documentary by Ed Webb-Ingall that profiles the experiences of the young adult and adult children of lesbian and
(No vlog this week. Helen’s been away on a business trip, and it’s too hard to sit there talking to myself.) Faith In an essay for Commonweal magazine, an anonymous lesbian mom discusses her Catholic faith, her and her partner’s decision to send their children to Catholic school, and the welcome they received there, in
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a case that explores whether student groups are able to exclude students based on “status or beliefs” if doing so violates the school’s anti-discrimination policy. President Obama’s administration is sending mixed messages about whether a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will happen
Several federal departments under President Obama have made moves to benefit the LGBT community, but the Department of Education has done little. This is despite growing evidence that LGBT youth are among those most at risk and that safe-schools programs benefit all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. I’ve explored this issue in
The Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation and is one of the key pieces of LGBT-related legislation pending this year. ENDA applies broadly across the LGBT community, and isn’t specific to those of us with children (as are, say, adoption rights), but some
A circuit judge today struck down Arkansas’ ban against unmarried couples adopting or foster-parenting children. The Arkansas law was approved by voters in November 2008, during the same election that in California saw the imposition of Prop 8, which halted the previous legalization of marriage for same-sex couples. The news must be particularly galling to
President Obama issued a memo directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to ensure that same-sex partners have the same visitation rights as other immediate family members. HHS should “Initiate appropriate rulemaking . . . to ensure that hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid respect the rights of patients to designate visitors.” The
Politics and Law Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida announced a series of improved policies “more responsive to the needs of the LGBT community.” The move was in response to a lawsuit brought by Janice Langbehn, who in 2007 was kept from her partner Lisa Pond who lay dying in the hospital. The couple’s three children
(This ran as my newspaper column on March 16, 2010. A few of the details on the McMillen prom case are a tad out of date, but the bulk of the piece still holds.) The Lego castle was almost done. It was a complicated thing, one of the most intricate constructions my then-preschooler had ever
