The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to hear a case that sought to overturn marriage equality. It’s a win for love and for the children and families sheltered by that love. It doesn’t mean that the threats to marriage equality are over yet, however.
The Illinois General Assembly yesterday passed the Equality for Every Family Act (HB 2568), which updates the state’s parentage laws to better protect the children of LGBTQ parents and others formed via assisted reproduction.
In a win for queer families, a Georgia appeals court has affirmed that a nongestational mother is a legal parent to the child she and her then-spouse had via assisted insemination. It’s great news—but should also serve as a cautionary tale.
Today starts Banned Books Week, and a new report from PEN America is blunt about the current wave of book bans in the United States: “Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children.”
Once again, another school shooting has claimed the lives of children and harmed even more. Once again, we must redouble our efforts for stricter gun control laws, and once again, we parents must be prepared to speak with our children about school shootings. Here are some resources for doing so.
Opponents of marriage equality are clearly on the attack. I cannot predict the outcome of this fight, but I do know that we LGBTQ parents and our children were at the forefront of winning marriage equality, and must lead again in its defense.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision saying that parents have the right to opt out their children before LGBTQ-inclusive books are read in public school classrooms is awful for many reasons. I want to focus here, though, on one that may feel amorphous but that should be at the heart of our response: its attack on queer joy.
Children in Hawaii with LGBTQ parents now have access to more secure legal protections, after Hawaii Governor Josh Green (D) yesterday signed legislation updating the state’s parentage laws to be more inclusive of them and other children formed via assisted reproduction.
“Today’s ruling threatens the very essence of public education,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a dissent after the court decided today that parents have the right to opt out their children before LGBTQ-inclusive books are read in public school classrooms.
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide tomorrow in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case revolving around LGBTQ-inclusive books in public school classrooms. Two of the books in the case were published by Little Bee Books, whose CEO and editorial director spoke with me about LGBTQ inclusion, their partnership with LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD, and the case itself.
