2011 Is So Gay!

Every year, there are a variety of events, activities, and observances that are relevant to the LGBT community. It's difficult to get a comprehensive list, but here is a good start on upcoming days of observance to be aware of.

Truly, 2011 is so gay. As is every year!

Please feel free to leave a comment on other LGBT day or observance/holidays (holigays :) ) that you think should be added.

January

February

• National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day - Feb 7
• Feb 15 - TENTATIVE SAVE THE DATE! Equality NC Day Of Action in Raleigh (lobby day)
  

March

• National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day - Mar 10

April

• TransAction Day - Apr 8 in 2010
• Day of Silence - Apr 16

May

• National Foster Care Month - May
• The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) - May 17
• Harvey Milk Day - May 22

June

• LGBT Pride Month - Jun
• Gay Days at Walt Disney World: the first week in Jun
• National HIV/AIDS Testing Day - Jun 27
• Stonewall Anniversary - Jun 30

July

August

September

• Celebrate Bisexuality Day - Sep 23
• National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day - Sep 27
• NC Pride - around last weekend in Sep
  

October

• GLBT History Month - Oct
• National Coming Out Day - Oct 11
• Ally Week - around Oct 18-22

November

• National Adoption Awareness Month - Nov
• Equality NC Equality Conference & Gala - mid Nov (date, location pending)
  
• National Adoption Day is celebrated the Saturday before Thanksgiving
• National Transgender Day of Remembrance - Nov 20

December

• World AIDS Day - Dec 1

Family Blogging

In the wake of the NC Supreme Court decision that voided gay second-parent adoption in the state (*sigh*), here are some gay family blogs.

While this decision is a setback here in North Carolina, there was an upside. The court decision also affirmed gay joint custody, which was decided by the Court of Appeals a couple of years ago.

If you're a co-parent, go here for a roadmap on how to take affirmative action - by your behavior, by conveying your intentions clearly to each other, by your agreements with each other, and by what you put in writing - to codify your desire to serve as co-parents.

Obviously you should consult a lawyer for creating legal agreements. The important thing, however, is to take steps now to show your intention to raise your kid(s) together.

In the meantime, however, share the joy (and hassle) of other LGBT families raising their children:

• Celebrating All Families, celebratingallfamilies.blogspot.com/
• Dads in the Burbs, dadsintheburbs.blogspot.com/
• Jesus has Two Daddies, jesushas2daddies.blogspot.com/
• Julie Shapiro (a lawyer’s blog on L/G adoption), julieshapiro.wordpress.com/
• Me and She, me-n-she.blogspot.com/
• Mother Issues, motherissues.wordpress.com/
• My Two Dads, patrickandcarl.blogspot.com/
• Those Two Daddies, thosetwodaddies.blogspot.com/
• Two Dads, One Girl, twodadsonegirl.blogspot.com/

"Supportive Families, Healthy Children" - Free Booklet!

Last month, the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing featured an article "Family Acceptance in Adolescence and the Health of LGBT Young Adults." This study determined that positive and accepting family attitudes and behaviors towards LGBT children significantly increase their overall health in adulthood.

(Not exactly a newsflash, but it does provide solid, peer-reviewed data to support a bit of common-sense that many people still don't get. It's still not an uncommon event for kids to be completely rejected by homophobic parents. It's a cliche, but it's also an ongoing tragedy.)

The study shows that specific parental and caregiver behaviors, e.g., advocating for children when they are mistreated for being gay or supporting their gender expression, protect against depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts in early adulthood. In addition, LGBT youth with highly accepting families have significantly higher levels of self-esteem and social support in young adulthood.

Findings include:

• Family accepting behaviors towards LGBT youth during adolescence protect against suicide, depression, and substance abuse.
• LGBT young adults who reported high levels of family acceptance during adolescence had significantly higher levels of self-esteem, social support, and general health, compared to peers with low levels of family acceptance.
• LGBT young adults who reported low levels of family acceptance during adolescence were over three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts and to report suicide attempts, compared to those with high levels of family acceptance.
• High religious involvement in families was strongly associated with low acceptance of LGBT children.

Results of the research are being translated into practical tools for parents by the study's author, Dr. Caitlin Ryan, and her team at the Family Acceptance Project in collaboration with Child and Adolescent Services at the University of California, San Francisco, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

They use a behavioral approach to help ethnically and religiously diverse families decrease rejection and increase support for their LGBT children to reduce risk for suicide, depression, substance abuse, and HIV, to promote well-being, and to prevent homelessness and placement in custodial care. This work is being conducted in English, Spanish, and Chinese with families from all ethnic backgrounds, including immigrant and very low income families, and those whose children are out-of-home in foster care and juvenile justice facilities.

To download a copy of their booklet, just go here and enter your e-mail address and zip code (which they'll use to track where their materials are used and ask for any feedback on the booklet):
"Supportive Families, Healthy Children."

What About The Children? National Adoption Month!

My partner and I adopted our son through the foster care system here in North Carolina, so today's blog topic is a big deal to me.

November is National Adoption Month, celebrated throughout the United States in an effort to finalize adoptions from foster care, and to celebrate all adoptive families. (National Adoption Day falls on November 20 this year, the Saturday before Thanksgiving).

This year's National Adoption Month initiative targets adoption professionals by focusing on ways to recruit and retain parents for the 115,000 children and youth in foster care waiting for adoptive families. The National Adoption Month poster (PDF - 3569 KB) notes strategies adoption professionals can implement any day, week, or month to benefit children waiting for families. The Spanish National Adoption Month poster (PDF - 3599 KB) also provides suggestions for working with Spanish-speaking families throughout the year.

Now is a great time for LGBT folks to adopt, and the foster care system is a great place to look for kids who need homes and parents.

Thousands of children in North Carolina enter the foster care system each year, and range in age from infants to 18 years old. All foster children have unique backgrounds, experiences, personalities, strengths, and needs.

The NC foster care system is open to gay parents. (OK, well, technically, they're neither open nor not open.) Your actual experience will depend on any foster care agency you go through and/or the officials in any county DSS (Department of Social Services) that you deal with. We found everyone we interacted with to be extremely positive and supportive of us as a gay male couple looking to adopt - all they cared about was being sure that the kids in need found a good, loving home that could support and care for them.

During November, there are plenty of things you can do to observe National Adoption Month, either as a parent, prospective parent, or someone who has no plans to have children but wants to support adoptive families. Some ideas for this month include:

☼ Write down your family story and add it to a scrapbook.

☼ Contact your local paper about National Adoption Month, and ask them to publish a positive story about adoption.

☼ Contact a children's organization or foster care agency and ask how you can help.

☼ Create your family tree. Complete one about your child's birth family (if information is known) as well as your adoptive family.

☼ If you have one, ask your place of worship to offer a special prayer for children in foster care waiting for adoption.

☼ Watch a movie with an adoption theme.

☼ Donate books about adoption to your local or school library.

There are already thousands of children out there who need homes, and foster care and adoption are great ways to form your family.

(And if you're thinking about having kids or are already a parent, the Family Equality Council is a great resource.)

Adoption is a great way to make a positive impact in a kid's life, and it's also an investment in the future for yourself, LGBT folks, the country, and society as a whole.

It's easy to think that you won't be a good parent, but I can guarantee you that having you as a parent will be hundreds of times better than having no parent at all.

Hard Science, Gay Parents, Good Kids

Family values are often brought up in the discussion of marriage equality, usually in the context of questioning how gay folks do as parents.

Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Standford, recently added some new scientific data to the growing collection of LGBT-family-affirming studies. Most notably, his facts and figures come the country’s largest source of data, the U.S. Census. In a study published this month in the journal Demography, Rosenfeld concludes that children being raised by same-sex couples have the same educational achievement as children raised by married heterosexual couples.

“The census data show that having parents who are the same gender is not in itself any disadvantage to children,” he said. “Parents’ income and education are the biggest indicators of a child’s success. Family structure is a minor determinant.”

In fact, Rosenfeld’s study shows that children of gay and married couples had lower grade-repetition rates than their peers raised by opposite-sex unmarried couples and single parents. And all children living in some type of family environment did much better than those living in group housing.

“One of the fundamental issues in modern family law that differs from state to state is whether same-sex couples can adopt,” Rosenfeld said. “My research makes clear that there’s a huge advantage to kids to be out of the care of the state and into the care of any family.”

Because gays and lesbians make up a smaller proportion of the American population (and those with children are a just tiny sliver), it has been difficult for researchers to conduct a representative study of how their children perform in the classroom. Opponents of marriage equality often criticize earlier studies for having sample sizes that are too small.

“Sample size is power,” Rosenfeld said. “And the census is the biggest sample we have. This study is based on a sample of thousands and thousands of kids.”

Despite the fact that the cost of becoming parents may be higher for gays and lesbians than for heterosexual couples, gay couples who did have children had substantially lower income and educational attainment than gay and lesbian
couples in general. Nevertheless, their kids did well.

Children of gay parents also tended to be racial minorities. Only 22.9% of children of heterosexual married couples are black or Hispanic, whereas 41.6% of children of gay men are black or Hispanic, and 37.1% of children of lesbians are black or Hispanic.

“Social scientists have an obligation to shed light where they can on issues that are roiling the public,” he said. “Sometimes we have to throw up our hands and admit that something is unknowable. But in this case, we could bring some real hard data to bear on an area that was otherwise really in the dark.”

"The analysis in this article, the first to use large-sample, nationally-representative data, shows that children raised by same-sex couples have no fundamental deficits in making normal progress through school. The core finding here offers a measure of validation for the prior, and much-debated, small-sample studies."

(I remember the first time I heard one of my kid's friends lament the unfairness of not having two dads. Who knew how truly disadvantaged he was? Still, it behooves us all not to hold any child's parentage against him! 8-])

The Kids Really Are All Right

(Thanks to ENC Communication Intern Matthew McGibney.)

I’m going to start by admitting that I haven’t seen the new film The Kids Are All Right yet, though everyone keeps telling me I should. I’ve heard good and bad things about how it portrays lesbian couples and their children, but obviously I can’t yet pass a judgment on that.

Either way, I’m sure the film will start a dialogue about gay folks adopting kids, and start some fear-mongering from the radical right about how it (equal adoption rights, not Julianne Moore’s acting) is a threat to children. At the same time, the National Organization for Marriage is on its summer marriage inequality tour, doing its best to spread misinformation about gay couples.

So I thought it might be interesting to see what the, you know, facts are about gay adoption. Luckily for us, researchers at the University of Virginia recently released a new study on that very subject. So here’s the question: How do kids with gay parents compare to other kids? Is being gay a legitimate reason to deny a couple equal adoption rights?

I don’t think the answers will surprise you.

"We found that children adopted by lesbian and gay couples are thriving," said Charlotte J. Patterson, a leader of the study, to the Virginia-based News Reader. "Our results provide no justification for denying lesbian or gay prospective adoptive parents the opportunity to adopt children. With thousands of children in need of permanent homes in the United States alone, our findings suggest that outreach to lesbian and gay prospective adoptive parents might benefit children who are in need."

Let’s just hope those in-need children don’t live in Florida, Mississippi, or Utah, where it’s illegal for gay people to adopt.

The study found that approaches to parenting, parenting stress and the strength of the couple’s relationship had the biggest effect on the child’s well-being, irrespective of whether the parents were gay or not. In fact, the study found that the children of gay couples were just as well-adjusted as those adopted by straight couples.

This report joins a growing body of work on this subject, with studies like this one in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, saying that the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers turned out significantly better than the average 17-year-old.

The children of gay couples are not disadvantaged growing up, and we can point to solid, scientific studies to support that claim. Equal adoption is not a “historically unprecedented and unproven social experiment with our children,” as Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family put it, but rather an option in the best interests of children.

If the choice for a foster child is no parents or gay parents, it’s a pretty easy decision for child-care workers to make. We need to remove state laws that take this choice away because of prejudice and lies.

And I need to get to the movies (sorry, Julianne, for making fun of your acting).

We Are Family ... Under the FMLA

(Thanks to ENC Communication Intern Matthew McGibney.)

There’s been another recent step in the right direction from Washington, where the Labor Department extended the Family and Medical Leave Act to gay couples.

The 1993 law allows workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year to take care of themselves or their families, but it had only been applied to straight couples.

The Labor Department said last week it interprets the Family and Medical Leave Act to allow an employee to take leave to care for any child for whom that employee is the primary caregiver, “regardless of the legal or biological relationship.” This means it now applies to gay couples. This is the latest in a series of small administrative steps the Obama administration has taken to be more LGBT-inclusive.

The FMLA covers all public employers, as well as private employers with at least 50 employees. It was designed to help workers balance their work and family lives by giving them some unpaid time off to deal with family or personal emergencies.

While this new policy will be good for gay employees, there are also questions about its effectiveness. This is not an act of Congress, and a less friendly administration in the future could easily overturn the provision. It would take a permanent alteration to the law to secure these rights more permanently.

Chris Geidner, a writer for MetroWeekly, points out another issue with the policy. According to his article, it “will be limited to an expansion related to individuals who are the non-legal, non biological parents of their same-sex partner's children.” This would not include legally-recognized gay couples because the so-called Defense of Marriage Act defines “marriage” and “spouse” as between opposite-sex couples, and this policy change would have to be in accordance with federal law.

Geidner continues, “The changes … also would apply if one's partner is having a child that is not the person's child biologically or legally or if a person's same-sex partner is adopting a child and the person, due to state law, doesn't have a legal relationship to that child.”

This is certainly a victory, small though it may be, toward equality. Any advance in equal rights lays the foundation for future successes, hopefully ones more solidly codified in law.

One Bad Mother (Hush Your Mouth!)

Yesterday was Mother's Day.

In the LGBT community, this day - along with its twin, Father's Day - has special significance. This day marks a point of special remembrance for those of us with positive, supportive parents, and it's a sad spot of bittersweet for folks whose parents did not embrace their LGBT kid.

For gay parents, it's a point of pride: "We're parents!" It's also almost always a source of initial consternation for parents and teachers. If both parents are guys, does one take Mother's Day and one take Father's Day? What do teachers have kids do for a Mother's Day craft if there's no mother in the picture? What about trans parents?

Fortunately, ultimately, issues of sex and gender aren't generally that troublesome for LGBT folks. I have gay dad friends who have one partner take Mother's Day and one take Father's Day. I also know couples where both lesbian parents take Mother's Day - it's two-times the work for the kid, but then they get to skip Father's Day. And my trans parental friends get the day of their target sex.

As for schools, teachers have been handling issues like this forever, what with the supply of single and adoptive parents. On Mother's Day if there are only dads in the parental picture, generally the teachers have the kid do a craft for a special aunt, or grandmother, or even for their dad(s). The point is to honor a special person (or people). There's no need to get bogged down in the details. The goal is familial joy, not stress (though most happy families get to have both!).

(The Washington Post has a blog article on this very topic. Also, The Guardian across the pond has an article on how more gay people are becoming parents and how that's affecting gay spending (or as they call it, "the pink pound").)

(For the record, Kid/we took Craig's Mom (Grams) out to see a show (Charlotte's Web, which Craig is music directing at a local community theater) and then we all did Chinese afterwards. There were also flowers and chocolate-covered strawberries for Craig's Mom earlier in the week. Craig's Mom is the only matron left for us, so she reaps the full M-Day bounty!)

For the first time in history, we've had a president include gay parents in a Mother's Day proclamation. President Obama, in yesterday's proclamation, said:

“Whether adoptive, biological, or foster, mothers share an unbreakable bond with their children, and Americans of all ages and backgrounds owe them an immeasurable debt. Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by two parents, a single mother, two mothers, a step-mom, a grandmother, or a guardian.”

(The bold is mine to highlight the "two mothers" bit.)

It's just a symbolic reference, but symbols do count.

I have a coworker who is fond of saying "Enjoy your crumbs!" whenever someone in authority makes an LGBT-positive reference but doesn't back it up with any quantifiable action for equality. It's a completely valid point, and the president's Mother Day's proclamation received quite a lukewarm reception from many gay groups, specifically for being empty words in light of lack of action on supporting ENDA and not working against DADT and DOMA. (The LGBT community seems to live a life of acronyms!)

Now, I have more faith in crumbs. People remember words, and the more our families are put out there in front of the public, the more people will realize the terrible effects of discrimination, both individual and abstract and discrete and formalized (as in laws). It's a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be one drop less if it weren't there.

It's a symbol, sure, but compare it to what's been there before - or hasn't. It's absence would've sent quite a different message. Sometimes a symbol can be both the message and the substance.

We hope everyone had a happy Mother's Day!

Take Action! Every Child Deserves a Family Act

It's sadly rare to hear about LGBT-family-positive legislation, but we have a federal proposal pending right now!

Not only is it LGBT-positive, it's also homophobia-negative. The "Every Child Deserves a Family Act" would restrict federal funding for states with anti-LGBT adoption and foster policies.

This legislation would directly affect states with explicit adoption restrictions, including Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Nebraska, and Mississippi.

Representative Pete Stark (CA-13) just introduced this bill, HR 4806, to take into consideration the best interests of children in the foster care system. The bill would open up permanent homes to more foster youth by working with states to eliminate laws, policies, practices, and procedures that exclude potential adoptive and foster parents because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.

The House Ways and Means Committee is beginning to review this bill, so this is the ideal time to urge your representative to co-sponsor this legislation that will help give foster children permanent, safe, and supportive homes. You can take action over at PFLAG - click here now to send your message.

About 125,000 foster children across the US are waiting to be adopted, but only 50,000 adoptions take place in any given year. There is a clear shortage of adoptive parents, and the result is that children, especially minority and special needs children, languish in foster care and bounce from placement to placement. The 25,000 youth who never find a permanent family and age out of the system each year are more likely to experience poverty, homelessness, incarceration, early pregnancy, and suffer with mental illness or substance abuse.

Despite the urgent need for more adoptive and permanent foster homes, some states have enacted discriminatory bans that prohibit children from being placed with qualified parents due to the parent's sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.

The result is less children being adopted and more children bouncing around the foster care system with no permanency and no security. In some cases these bans have resulted in a grandparent having to go through costly litigation in order to care for their own kin who are in foster care.

This kind of discrimination does a disservice to many children who need a permanent, safe and supportive home. It robs far too many young people of a family, a core value that many Americans hold dear, and it's time to take a stand.

That's your cue! A couple of clicks and some keystrokes could change the life of a needy child.

The Saint Comes Marching In ... For Marriage Equality

Happy Freedom to Marry Week!

I'm pleased to say that the Saints are winners.

No, I don't mean because they won the Super Bowl, which they did, beating the Colts 31 to 17. (At least that's what I read in the news - no sports-gay am I!)

I don't even mean the entire team of the New Orleans Saints. I'm talking about one specific person.

Scott Fujita, linebacker for the Saints, is a total winner.

Last year, he participated in the National Equality March in Washington and became a vocal supporter for marriage equality. This is significant for two reasons.

First, he's a straight ally - the married father of two twin girls - who wasn't really involved in the gay rights movement before this.

Second, and more remarkably, he's a professional football player, and pro sports are notable for being a bastion of entrenched homophobia. It's extremely rare for a gay sports figure to come out, and it's also unusual for the topic of sexual orientation to even be discussed, much less for someone to be vocal about their support for LGBT equality. The NFL is not renown for its progressiveness and diversity.

Scott Fujita talked about why he endorsed the National Equality March and why he supports LGBT equality in an interview with Dave Zirin in the Huffington Post last October.

"By and large in this country the issue of gay rights and equality should be past the point of debate. Really, there should be no debate anymore.

"For me, in my small platform as a professional football player, my time in the spotlight is probably limited. The more times you have to lend your name to a cause you believe in, you should do that.

"I remember reading about an initiative that was proposed in the state of Arkansas. It was some kind of measure aimed at preventing adoptions by single parents.

"Now, the way I translated that language was that only heterosexual, married couples could adopt children. As an adopted child, that really bothered me.

"What that is really saying is that the concern with one's sexual orientation outweighs what's really important, and that's finding safe homes for children, for our children.

"It's also saying that we'd rather have kids bounce around from foster home to foster home throughout the course of their childhood, than end up in a permanent home, where the parent, whether that person's single or not, gay or straight.

"Either way, it doesn't matter. It's a home that's going to be provided for a kid who desperately needs a home. As an adopted child, that measure really bothered me. It just boggles my mind because good, loving homes for any child are the most important thing."

So say we all! I'm still not a football follower, but I'm definitely now a fan of the Scott Fujita. No matter how you look at it, this guy's a Saint.

What's In A Name?

Names have power, and that's especially true for the LGBT community in general. A name is how we identify ourselves, and it's also a tool for affiliating with others.

I know many couples who have changed their last names when they had an official ceremony to formalize their symbolic union.

Naming was important for me and my partner when we adopted our son. Giving him a hyphenated last name has made a lot of casual interactions much easier - he's now automatically affiliated with both of us, simply by dint of sharing our last name.

Names are particularly significant for the trans community. For many trans folks, a legal name change is a first step towards having their legal identities conform to the way they self-identify, as well as the first step towards living their lives authentically.

Securing a legal name change can be an intimidating experience, however, involving interactions with the court system and possibly multiple judges, an experience that is foreign to many people (and onerous to all). It can also involve a significant expense, as well as a serious commitment of time and effort. Until you've done it, it's difficult to understand how hard a process like this can be.

Stories have power, too, and the stories of people who have gone through this process help enlighten the public. The New York Times featured a great article on a program for New York trans residents, the Name Change Project of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Reading about the travails of other folks in the LGBT community help remind us of our common struggles, as well as broaden our understanding of what other folks are dealing with.

Shakespeare is known for encapsulating universal experiences. As is observed in Romeo and Juliet, "Thou art thyself ... retain that dear perfection."

The love that dare not speak its name would smell as sweet ....

Kids, Coloring, and COLAGE

1) Kids!
For the past several years, Craig and I (and later, when he came into the picture, Kid) have been part of a research study on gay parents and their children. We had the honor of being among the token gay male couples included.

Abbie Goldberg recently published the results of her study in her new book, “Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children.”

In her book, she notes that accumulated research shows that children of same-sex parents are not markedly different from those of heterosexual parents. They have no increased incidence of psychiatric disorders, are just as popular at school, and have just as many friends.

While girls raised by lesbian mothers seem slightly more likely to have more sexual partners, and boys slightly more likely to have fewer, than those raised by heterosexual mothers, neither sex is more likely to suffer to identify as LGBT.

In fact, these children tend to be less conventional and more flexible when it comes to gender roles and assumptions than those raised in more traditional families.

Long story short, the kids are all right! The New York times has a nice article on this here.


2) Coloring!
According to the American Association of Pediatrics, there are 9 million children living in LGBT-headed families in the United States alone. As of the 2000 census, children with two moms or two dads lived in 96% of US counties (and 100% of NC counties).

(This doesn’t include children living with parents who identify as bisexual or transgender and live with a partner of the opposite sex, single parents, or non-custodial parents.)

Despite these numbers, very few children’s books are published which reflect the lives of children with LGBT parents. It’s entirely possible for children to go all the way through child care and twelve years of school without ever reading a story about a family like theirs, let alone seeing their family reflected in music, TV shows, or movies.

Most teachers want all children to be comfortable in their classrooms. Most parents want their children to grow up to be tolerant of all kinds of differences. Reading stories that represent all kinds of families helps all children to feel safe, acknowledged, and accepted.

Rainbow Rumpus offer a couple of free PDFs of coloring books for LGBT families.

They also offer parent and teacher guides for these books, as well as some good advice for talking with children about families.

• Let children decide for themselves when and how much to share about their own families.
• Read stories that show different family structures: single parents, divorced parents, married and unmarried parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, and extended families. Include stories about families with both heterosexual and LGBT parents.
• Talk with children about the different kinds of families and point out the similarities as well as the differences. Let the conversation about families take place over time and in the natural context of children’s curiosity.
• Don’t be afraid to use the words heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, as appropriate, to describe the adults in the stories. It’s important for children to hear these words used and defined as terms that may describe family members, because they will also almost certainly hear the words gay and lesbian used as insults by other children or adults.

3) COLAGE!
COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) has announced their ART Project to highlight the experiences of people born through assisted reproductive technologies (ART), e.g., donor insemination.

Over the past 30 years the number of people born through these technologies to LGBT parents has steadily grown, yet let little, if any, work has been done to bring this community together or address the experiences of these youth and adults.

The first major effort of the ART Project is to conduct a national assessment of children of gay parents born through donor insemination. COLAGE is calling all youth born through donor insemination and their parents to take an online survey.

COLAGE will be using all the information to develop and debut new programs and resources to provide tools to talk about these families, spark open dialogues within families and communities about donor insemination, and equip both COLAGErs and parents to navigate schools and other institutions.

There are two surveys, one for COLAGErs born through donor insemination and one for their parents. Both the surveys will be available online between now and November 30th. Each survey will take between 15 and 20 minutes to complete. If you have any questions about surveys or the ART Project in general, please contact Jeff DeGroot, COLAGE Fellow at jeff@colage.org.

Survey for LGBTQ identified parents with a donor conceived child:
http://tinyurl.com/parentdisurvey

Survey for people born through donor insemination with a LGBTQ identified parent:
http://tinyurl.com/colagerdisurvey

What About The Children? National Adoption Month!

My partner and I adopted our son through the foster care system here in North Carolina, so today's blog topic is a big deal to me.

November is National Adoption Month, celebrated throughout the United States in an effort to finalize adoptions from foster care, and to celebrate all adoptive families. (National Adoption Day falls on November 21st this year, the Saturday before Thanksgiving).

This year's theme for National Adoption Month is "Answering the Call - You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent."

(The 2009 focus is also more toward the African-American community. A disproportionate amount of kids in the foster care system are racial minorities.)

There've been some really positive legal developments for gay parents in the state recently. Now is a great time for LGBT folks to adopt, and the foster care system is a great place to look for kids who need homes and parents.

Thousands of children in North Carolina enter the foster care system each year, and range in age from infants to 18 years old. All foster children have unique backgrounds, experiences, personalities, strengths, and needs.

The NC foster care system is open to gay parents. (OK, well, technically, they're neither open nor not open.) Your actual experience will depend on any foster care agency you go through and/or the officials in any county DSS (Department of Social Services) that you deal with. We found everyone we interacted with to be extremely positive and supportive of us as a gay male couple looking to adopt - all they cared about was being sure that the kids in need found a good, loving home that could support and care for them.

During November, there are plenty of things you can do to observe National Adoption Month, either as a parent, prospective parent, or someone who has no plans to have children but wants to support adoptive families. Some ideas for this month include:

☼ Write down your family story and add it to a scrapbook.

☼ Contact your local paper about National Adoption Month, and ask them to publish a positive story about adoption.

☼ Contact a children's organization or foster care agency and ask how you can help.

☼ Create your family tree. Complete one about your child's birth family (if information is known) as well as your adoptive family.

☼ If you have one, ask your place of worship to offer a special prayer for children in foster care waiting for adoption.

☼ Watch a movie with an adoption theme.

☼ Donate books about adoption to your local or school library.

See Celebrating National Adoption Month for 30 days of these kind of ideas.

Last time I went bowling with the local gay dads group, I thought it was hilarious that most of the people there had had their children biologically through an ex-wife. Apparently the old-fashioned way of having kids is also the new-fangled way for gay parents!

Still, there are already thousands of children out there who need homes, and foster care and adoption are great ways to form your family.

(And if you're thinking about having kids or are already a parent, the Family Equality Council is a great resource.)

Adoption is a great way to make a positive impact in a kid's life, and it's also an investment in the future for yourself, LGBT folks, the country, and society as a whole.

It's easy to think that you won't be a good parent, but I can guarantee you that having you as a parent will be hundreds of times better than having no parent at all.

Equality in the News for September 26-October 2

Happy October! Time sure is flying by quickly! I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed Pride this year! I was unable to attend because of work, but heard some many great things!

-Jennifer

STATE

Pam Spaulding Speaks at NC Pride

Many of you were well aware that North Carolina’s 25^th Pride took place in Durham! Please take a look and listen at Pam Spaulding’s keynote address, where she mentions ENC and the passage of the School Violence Protection Act.

Speaking of Pride…

The News & Observer reports that 4,500 attended this year’s pride fest which has been the largest number yet! Woo-hoo! The Herald-Sun also covered the event, and includes a small slide show.

A University Study Confirms What We Already Know…

East Carolina University (which just so happens to be my school), states that a study published this month in Adoption Quarterly found that: “the sexual orientation of adopted parents was not a significant predictor of emotional problems.” Well of course it isn’t. The only thing that should matter is whether or not the parents are going to love their children!

Orange County: The New Travel Hot Spot?

The Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau held a symposium for the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association and ENC Executive Director Ian Palmquist was quoted giving some details about the political climate in the area.

Local Teens' Perspectives on the Need for Ally Week

The teen column in Wilmington's Star-News focused on making schools safer for LGBT students this month, and highlights the need for allies to speak out against name-calling.

NATION

Pro-Prop 8 Campaign Seeks to Shield Internal Memos

On Friday U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco heard arguments from lawyers seeking internal campaign records from sponsors of California’s voter-approved gay marriage ban. The attorneys are challenging Prop 8, saying it denies equality to LGBT couples in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The judge is expected to rule on the issue next week.

Illinois: Marriage Equality Bill Introduced

On Thursday Illinois Senator Heather Steans introduced a marriage equality bill in the Illinois State Senate. The bill is co-sponsored by Representatives Deb Mell, Sara Feigenholtz, Constance Howard, Harry Osterman and John Fritchey. Our friends at Equality of Illinois applaud the sponsoring legislators! Congrats to Illinois!

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

An article in Joint Force Quarterly--the Pentagon's top scholarly journal--argues forcefully for repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Adm. Mike Mullen who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff states that, “after a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly.” You don’t say? It amazes me how there have to be “studies” for many citizens in this country to believe in equal rights.

Well, that is it for this week’s round up. Please tune in next week for additional news briefs. Also, fan us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for daily updates!