I love the Olympics. I was a varsity fencer in college and have done serious stints with a few other sports. I love the life lessons sports teach, including dedication, leadership, teamwork, and dealing with both success and failure — all values I’d like to convey to my son. I get choked up during recap montages and medal ceremonies. Normally, then, the start of the Olympics is a time of celebration around my house. And then there’s Sochi.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev last week signed a bill into law that bans foreign same-sex couples — and single people of any sexual orientation from countries that allow same-sex couples to wed — from adopting Russian children.
Today is a day to celebrate love. How appropriate, then, that late yesterday, Federal District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen struck down Virginia’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples, and in her ruling, quoted Mildred Loving of Loving v. Virginia, the case that struck down that state’s and the country’s anti-miscegenation laws.
[Updated again: Now with Alabama and Virginia!] Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, and Texas all had positive news about marriage equality yesterday. Let’s round it all up. (I know: Nevada isn’t really part of the south, but it’s south of where I am, so grant me some poetic license here.)
Le Zbor, the first lesbian and feminist choir in southeastern Europe, has created a charming video “expressing its solidarity with the LGBT citizens of Russia and worldwide.” Watch the Croatian singers here:
Great news from Idaho this morning: The state Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a person can petition to do a second-parent adoption of another’s child, even if the two adults are not married.
A baby born in Vancouver, British Columbia, is the first to have three legal parents on her birth certificate under the province’s new law.
Yelena Goltsman is founder and co-president of RUSA LGBT, the association for Russian-speaking LGBT people in the U.S., and a leading voice speaking out for LGBT Russians. She didn’t plan to be an LGBT activist, though — and in fact came to the U.S. in 1990 because of anti-Jewish, not anti-LGBT, persecution, when she was still married to a man.
Here’s a sneak peek of Chevrolet’s ad that will run tonight during the Olympic opening ceremonies, featuring two-mom and two-dad families.
Google lit up the Internet last night with its not-so-subtle rainbow-colored Olympic doodle, quoting the non-discrimination section of the Olympic Charter below it. From what I can tell, based on reports from friends of friends, the doodle is visible by Google users in Russia, too. I’ve been working in social media and social justice for a long time, and I think Google’s move was one of the best-timed, best planned examples of how to use the former for the latter. Other companies are planning to air LGBT-inclusive commercials during the Games as well. But what will the impact of this be?
