A few bits from round and about that I haven’t covered elsewhere, including family vignettes, information on fertility and family formation, and a child of same-sex parents left “stateless” after three countries have refused or delayed granting her citizenship.
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.
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.
The Olympics start tonight, and I am going to be watching with mixed feelings: the love of a sports fan, and the concern of a member of the LGBT community. I shudder when I think that Russia may soon pass a bill that would allow the state to take children from parents for no reason other than that the parents are LGBT. The Family Equality Council is taking action, however, and asking people to send a message of love and support to LGBT people in Russia through the “To Sochi With Love” campaign.
If you blinked, you might have missed them. But there, at 44 seconds in, two gay dads and their daughter roller skate across our screens in Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl commercial. A sign of progress and inclusion? Or a token gesture from a company sponsoring the Olympics in an LGBT-hostile country? My opinion is that for
Lots to round up this week, in the U.S. and elsewhere, so hang on to your hats.
The LGBT news from around the world keeps getting worse. The Ugandan Parliament today passed a bill that criminalizes the “promotion” of “homosexuality” and can lead to life imprisonment for those convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.” Several other countries have had similar recent news.
Russian authorities have halted adoptions of Russian children by Swedish same-sex couples, reports Swedish newspaper The Local. A spokeperson for the Adoptioncentrum agency told Sveriges Television (SVT) “It’s terrible. We have 13 children in Russian orphanages today who have been offered to parents in Sweden who they have actually met.”
A few items worthy of note that I haven’t covered here before, including another sports star coming out about his lesbian moms.
