The Boy Scouts may be shining a flashlight into a tent they would prefer remains dark. In April they ejected Ohio mother Jennifer Tyrrell from her position as leader of her son’s Cub Scout den, simply because she is a lesbian. In doing so, however, they turned a light on the impact of their policy, and helped show that the real victims are children like Tyrrell’s seven-year-old.
The Latter-day Saints (Mormons) as a group are not known for being particularly accepting of LGBT people. What happens, then, when a young person in a Mormon family comes out as LGBT? The Family Acceptance Project (FAP) at San Francisco State University, which has long studied and addressed the impact of family acceptance and rejection on the health and mental health of LGBT youth, has just released a new faith-based family education resource to help guide Mormon families in supporting their LGBT children.
Lesléa Newman is best known as the author of the first children’s book to feature LGBT parents, Heather Has Two Mommies, as well as other LGBT-inclusive picture books, such as Mommy, Mama, and Me; Daddy, Papa, and Me; and Donovan’s Big Day. The prolific author’s latest book, A Sweet Passover, does not feature an LGBT family, but is nonetheless a charming tale worthy of consideration by readers here.
The United Church of Christ approved two resolutions recently in support of LGBT equality, including the first-ever one by a major Christian denomination affirming the right of LGBT parents to adopt and raise children. A second resolution was in support of international human rights for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. I
Jewish LGBT organization Keshet has announced the winner of its first Jewish Children’s Book Writing Contest (mentioned here in February): The Purim Superhero, by Elisabeth Kushner, a public librarian in Vancouver, Canada—and a lesbian mom herself. Kushner told Keshet: When I heard about the Keshet contest, it seemed like a perfect fit: in the Purim story,
Some of you may remember the great post last November by “Cop’s Wife,” the mom who blogs at Nerdy Apple Bottom. She wrote about her five-year-old son, who wanted to be Daphne from Scooby Doo for Halloween, and the intolerant comments from other moms at the son’s preschool. The son’s church preschool. Now, it turns
For those of you interested in the ideas sparked by my post yesterday on coming out in a religious context, here’s another good read: “Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue,” by Baptist minister Cody J. Sanders at Religion Dispatches. Sanders writes: More difficult to address are the myriad ways in which everyday churches that
There’s been a lot written on the recent bullying-related suicides. I found this piece by Rabbi Victor Appell, “If Only Tyler Clementi Had Been to a Gay Synagogue,” particularly moving. Too often religion and LGBT rights are set up as opposites; Appell shows us how they don’t have to be, and how “coming out in
Not this again. An Anglican elementary school in Bedford, Texas has denied admission to a girl because her parents are lesbians and married in Canada, reports NBCDFW. The head of St. Vincent’s School, Kenneth Monk, said that by allowing the the school would be “going off our canons” that say marriage is limited to one man
(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
