Adoption, Compassion, and The Pitfalls of "Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs"

As many of the readers to this blog are also subscribers to our YouTube channel...you may already know that we are a same-sex family that built our family via adoption...and that adoption was done through a third party agency working with the state to match couples like my husband and me, with children that need a forever family. It is the best thing we have ever done in our lives and it is because of this that this weeks blog post hits all my angry buttons. Some people just seem to want to ensure that kids remain unadopted forever.

What do I mean?...

recent legislation written and introduced by Senator Mike Enzi(R) of Wyoming and Congressman Mike Kelly(R) of Pennsylvania have introduced a bill titled "The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2014". This rather tongue-in-cheek title should rather be called the "child welfare exclusion act" because what it does is ensure that third party agencies that provide child welfare services can no longer be forced to provide those services in the instance that doing so would cause them to violate their "sincerely held religious beliefs". You know, like believing gay people are an abomination?...yeah, those kind.

To get an idea of what is happening here, take the recent Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Ruling, Throw in all the compassion that the GOP has shown to children in the recent border crisis, put it in a cocktail shaker with a dose of complete ignorance...shake it up and Viola!...you have a chilled concoction of such toxic stupidity I wouldn't even give it to my dog.

In another example of religious zeal leading to shooting themselves square in the face, they have done it again...only this time, they are trying to drag families like mine down with them. And it's time to set the record straight.

VICTORY!...... DOMA and Prop 8 are Gone!

In a double ruling, the United States Supreme Court today struck down the Defense  of Marriage Act by a 5-4 margin....AND.... dealt the final blow to Prop 8. Both are now gone.

Our family has been fighting Prop 8 since the day it was announced in 2008. Nearly as soon as we could get married did the news come someone would fight it...as we knew they would. We all had to move so fast to get married before the window closed that My husband and I had to marry a week before when we would have, which would have been my birthday and the anniversary of our domestic partnership. That day would also have been the day Prop 8 passed at the ballot box. A day we will always remember as being a very sad one. And yet here we are nearly five years and many court battles later....still standing and still married. Prop 8 has been such a big part of our lives for the last five years that it's stamp can never be undone. It launched us into activism...onto YouTube and this blog...and brought so many amazing people and experiences into our lives that I am almost grateful for it even as I celebrate its passing.

And DOMA too. I almost don't even know what to say because a part of me always feared that the Supremes would find a way to wiggle out of striking it down. I really can't believe it's gone as well. This, more than anything is the reason for the picture I have put at the top of this blog. Just like the destruction of the Death Star, DOMA has always been a similar instrument of tyranny...and its demise no less dramatic and far reaching. I know that for my whole life, I have believed and accepted that no government would accept or sanction and gay relationship.....that was just the world I came out in. Hell...DOMA was signed into law at about the same time that I came out, further underscoring the collective statement that gay people would be forever unprotected by the laws that would always treat us like strangers to those we love and spend our lives with. We were on our own and that was just the way it was. How amazing to be writing this day celebrating the end, not only of DOMA and Prop 8, but that way of thinking.

Between the Deaths of Prop 8 and DOMA I feel like I am standing in a completely different world. In fact...I am. And just as the destruction of the Death Star in  Star Wars was seen as an impossible task...so to was this. There were cries of joy....and great exhales of relief. That's how I feel today.

I know that tommorow will  bring new battles and more insane comments by people who simply will not let gay people get on with our lives. We know we have more work to do.....But today is a day to celebrate.

Seeing Our Best In Our Darkest Moments

Hello dear readers...it is nice to be back after missing last week. Over that time however, it seems as if some crazy things have been happening in the world. The Boston bombings and fertilizer plant explosion in Texas has been on mind all week as it seems as if the wounds of the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings haven't even healed yet...but....it's not those tragedies themselves that are in my thoughts these day so much as our response to them. Terrible events tend to bring us together as a people in ways I wish we would find when we aren't grieving some terrible loss.

I spend my days swimming through a see of opinion about people attitudes and opinions to LGBT people and our rights and if you can say one thing about it, it is that it is contentious. The loudest voices are often the most hateful ones and those people need to be met and countered. The path to seeing an LGBT person as a normal human being and not a national threat has been a long and loud one and we are far from seeing the end of it. Even the repeal of Doma and the passage of  LGBT inclusive immigration and work place reforms will not end the culturally entrenched homophobia that still needs to be met daily with courage and truth.

But as I watch the T.V. in the wake of the Boston Bombings and hear such amazing stories of  compassion...like people running toward the blast sights to help the injured instead of running away in self protection...it makes me think. Why can not this be who we are all the time? And given that LGBT people are there in these same events, suffering in the carnage and helping to heal it...when will the world learn that we have bigger problems to face in the world than two people of the same-sex getting married?

Kids of LGBT Families In The Spotlight

It's the eve of the beginning of oral arguments for the Supreme Court on the issues of Prop 8 and DOMA and here I am on a Saturday already holding my breath. It's been a whirlwind week in which the pending cases have been front and center for us all week long. As most of you know...since our Facebook wall is practically wallpapered with links....my son Daniel's letter to Chief Justice John Roberts has gone viral and gotten a lot of attention. Thankfully, the lions share of that attention has been positive and we have been very happy to pass that along to him. I was/am very proud of him and I feel he earned every bit of the praise he has received from this.

However, when it comes to kids and the public eye, there are many who ask if showing our children in such a public way is good for them. This question was brought to me just this last week in a brief spot that Daniel and I were in for CNN's Starting Point. The one and only question I received from the anchors was nothing to with DOMA or Prop 8 but everything to do with why we as parents would chose to put our kids in the spotlight:

...Tell me a little bit about putting your family out there for the world to see. There can be down sides to that too. People can say, "Look, you're showing what it's like to be your family"....There are others who say, "Maybe kids shouldn't be in the spotlight."

It's a fair question...and one that I had a specific answer for but as a parent first and marriage equality advocate second I think the topic is one that bears further discussion. So grab your favorite beverage and follow me after the jump....

The Superbowl and Gay Rights....Game On

Ah sports...my old arch nemesis. I can't believe that I am actually finding myself writing about football today. I have never been the kind of guy to follow or be interested in sports at all. I just have never got why it's supposed to be exciting. I suppose it's exactly the same for other people when I go on about Star Wars and Sci-Fi...but for me, sports remind me of being different. Whether it was being a kid who never understood the rules and constantly got made fun of by classmates, making the playing of the game into a hell of it's own...or standing on the outside as the odd duck, as the rest of my family excitedly gathers together to share football on Sundays  Sports, for me, has always highlighted how I have felt like an outsider to the rest of the world. That's not a gay thing...it's just a me thing. So when The Superbowl and World Series clog up the news I usually ignore it and wait for the temporary insanity to pass.

Yet lately it seems as if the sports world is undergoing a seismic shift when it comes to gay players. On the eve of footballs biggest night...and during a time when I usually cannot escape hearing about everyone's fantasy football picks...the  conversation has instead been about the acceptance of gay people.

Wait what?...

How We Think About Coming Out

Gay brothers and sisters,... You must come out. Come out... to your parents... I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives... come out to your friends... if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors... to your fellow workers... to the people who work where you eat and shop... come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared by the votes from Dade to Eugene      --Harvey Milk

Coming out...it is commonly considered a rite of passage for all lgbt people. We regard it as a  singular act of courage and truth telling which is said to set us free. It's sometimes it can be as large as bringing conversation at thanksgiving dinner to a screaching halt or as small as only being able towhisper the truth to yourself in a mirror. But however it's done...it always takes courage and still more to to bring that truth out to others. We know...because many of us have been there with our heart in our hands waiting for parents or friends to respond to our finding the courage to tell them about ourselves...each second of silence feeling like hours.

Many of my readers may have watched my husband Jay's opinion video of Jodie Fosters kinda coming out speech at the Golden Globes. It got so much heated and angry backlash that Jay got called all kinds to things from selfish, to a bully, to a couple of death threats. To me...the response to Jays Criticisms of Jody Foster were way out of proportion to what was actually said about her. Not that Jay was the only one to have some strong opinions about the topic...many notable and well respected voices also had some raised eyebrows including radio host and Huffington Post editor Michelangelo Signorile. Yet,  anyone who had something critical to say about Jodie Fosters speech was vilified and got the full wrath of the internet. Now...while you would expect that her fans would want to defend her...the response was so large and heated that it made me wonder if something else was behind their reactions beyond the effect of celebrity. Perhaps Jay had touched on a nerve that many of us are sensitive to...what we believe coming out is and what we impart to the person doing it?

Many of you may be tired of hearing about the whole Jodie Foster thing...and to be honest, I am too. Even though I may use Jodie as an example at times, would like to take this issue out of the realm of any one persons circumstances and take a look at the act of coming out itself....and then, if being a celebrity alters how we view it. Is coming out something so personal and intimate that no one is allowed to have opinions about it?

Transgender Awareness Week and Living In Stealth

Did you know that this week is Transgender Awareness Week?...It is! From The 12th through the 19th you can expect to see articles and videos geared to help raise awareness about the Transgender community, culminating with the Transgender Day of Remembrance on the 20th. For those not familiar with the day of remembrance, it is a day set aside to talk about and remember our friends and family in the Transgender community who have been lost to transphobia, suicide, and violence.

In my opinion, these holidays are just as important as any rainbow festooned pride event, largely because the transgender community is so misunderstood...not only by the general public...but often also by the LGB community to whom their "T" is a part of. Coming out as a gay and being a member of the LGBT community does not automatically make you an expert on all it's facets and when a friend came out to me as trans I discovered that I had a  lot of learning to do. Unfortunately, it wasn't long after my friend Carina came out to me that I lost her to suicide because the rejection of her family was too much for her to bear. And just like that, transgender issues stopped being abstract issues peripherally attached to a community I consider myself a part of and became a very personal part of my life. My education on trans life began with my friend Carina but it continues to evolve today...

For example...It was in a discussion with a Trans friend about raising awareness that a comment was made that challenged what I believe to be an important,  if not critical feature of gay life....coming out, and then living your life out of the closet....

Tipping Points

"I felt a great disturbance in the force....as if millions of conservatives suddenly cried out in terror and then their heads exploded. Obama must have won...."
-Obi-wan Kenobi

(Just kidding! Please don't sue me Lucasfilm/Disney!)

It may sound silly, but that is exactly what is playing out all over the internet this week. This election not only saw the reelection of Barack Obama but it also saw a historic win for gay rights at the ballot box. For the first time ever, same-sex marriage won at the voting booth in not just one, but four states. In addition, we saw Tammy Baldwin become our first elected LGBT senator as well as picking up two more out legislators in the Congress. All in all,  the wins for the gay community this election cycle have far reaching implications for the gay community, not the least of which being that it is no longer a liability for lawmakers to publicly support gay rights, nor is it a scarlet letter to be both gay and run for office. Additionally, the fact that gay marriage won the majority vote in...not one, but four states..could put some additional pressure on the Supreme Court to find DOMA unconstitutional. It is because of these big wins and their possible repercussions that some have dubbed this election the "tipping point" for gay rights....the point at which it becomes progressively easier to build further support for the equal civil rights of the LGBT community.

However, it is also because of these big wins that some people are losing their minds. For instance...Aware that the world is changing in ways they don't like, NOM and The Family Research council are having meltdowns of epic proportions, realizing that they are now going to have a much harder time building support for their cause. They have nonetheless circled the wagons and are vowing to continue the fight. To do that they are dropping the mask of civility and upping the ante on the amount of hurt they are willing to cause to their fellow humans. For example....

Rupert Everett and Turning Homophobia Back On Ourselves

“I can’t think of anything worse than being brought up by two gay dads.Some people might not agree with that. Fine! That’s just my opinion."    -Rupert Everett

For some of you reading this post, Rupert Everett's opinion about same-sex parenting may be old news by now. After all, the internet has been castigating Rupert for more than a week and that's forever in internet time. Yet as a gay father myself, Rupert's words have continued to ring in my mind...not so much for his evaluation of gay parents, but of Rupert himself. For a man out personally and professionally for a good number of years and in a relationship, you would expect Rupert's experience with gay people to be a little broader. And yet from the tone of his comment, it seems clear that he has never even met a gay parent in real life. If we are the worst that he can think of...then he really needs to get out more.

However, I couldn't give a rats behind about Rupert Everett's opinion about me or my family. Like many people, his opinions(or his mothers) are more fueled by ignorance about gay families than by any fact or experience with them. What troubles me more is that Rupert can maintain this point of view in spite of the fact that he, himself, is gay. And yet....Rupert Everett is not the first person I have heard make some head scratching comment about gay people while being gay themselves. Sadly I have heard things come from gay men that sound like they came straight from the press desk at The National Organization for Marriage. It always makes me wonder how in the hell they can think that way about other gay people as if they are not included in their blanket judgments. And so...Rupert's comments have become the catalyst for me to think a lot about acceptance this week and how we come think of ourselves as gay people before and after coming out. Where does self acceptance come from? Is it from living our lives, out to our family and friends?...or is it learning to define "gay" for ourselves? Lets talk about it...

Chick-Fil-A...Hypocrisy, Following The Money, and Utterly Missing The Point

Yes this is another Chick-Fil-A post. I know that you may have already had you Fil of them(har har). It does seem that you can't swing a stick these days without being confronted by a story about CFA  on the blogs, online news outlets, television, newspapers, and twitter feeds. This one, seemingly inconsequential company has become the focus of a debate we would normally reserve for a much larger event....like the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell for instance. And yet...this obscure fast food chain has been rocketed into the limelight. Hell...I can't even type this post without the customers in my store reading over my shoulder as I type and wanting to engage me in conversation about it...that's how big this is getting. And there seems to be some confusion as to what it's all about.

With everyone and their Grandmother talking about this(literally)...I didn't think I needed to be one more voice in the din. But...The problem is that nearly everyone has it wrong. Dan Cathy and his homophobic comments have become the focus of the debate, which has become focused on free speech, free capitalism, and freedom of religion....none of which has anything to do with why Chick-Fil-A got in the hot seat to begin with.

However, I had determined not be yet another blog post....until....it all came to a head for me this morning when I saw Jon Stewart's take on the issue on The Daily Show and that became the straw that broke the camels back. And so it is my turn to set the record straight and to hopefully offer a course correction to a debate that has gone dangerously off the rails. But first, The Daily Show clip after the jump....

Paul Cameron Admits Gay Attraction...And Why We Should Care

Hello everyone...Earlier this week it was announced that, while being interviewed on the David Pakman radio show, discredited anti-gay researcher Paul Cameron admitted on air to having same-sex attractions from the age of three. For those of you who are not familiar with Cameron or his work, Cameron was a psychologist and sex researcher who built his career by bogus "studies" and research papers vilifying the gay community. In order to create credibility for his assertions, Cameron would often distort and sometimes outright bastardize the work of other credible scientists. This ultimately led to him being expelled from the American Psychological Association and roundly condemned and discredited by the medical and psycholigical communities. However,...not letting a pesky thing like facts stop them...promininent anti-gay orgs continue to use Camerons works to bolster there own viewpoints and to pad their arguments with his false statistics. This mans works are the source documents for groups who right this minute seek to eliminate any protections the gay community might attain.

Therefor...it was with to my chagrin that his anouncement on the Pakman Show didn't garner more attention. I saw it as a big dam hairy deal. We need to be shouting it out as loudly as we did George Allen Rekkers. If your not familiar with Paul Cameron, you should be and I will tell you why...(Video Below the fold)

Till Tuesday...The Spector of Amendment One

The absurd travesty of justice that is North Carolina's Amendment One is coming to a vote this Tuesday and all of us are watching, semi-hopeful and fingers crossed. While I have not weighed in on the subject of Amendment one, allow me to correct that this week by giving some of my thoughts on what I see as a ridiculous effort on the part of conservatives lawmakers to not only shut the door against gay marriage forever, but also nail it shut and then burn  the house down with themselves inside. I know that I am holding my breath until the vote is over this Tuesday and I thought I would take a moment to discuss the Amendment and why I think it's adoption would ultimately be North Carolina shooting itself in the foot....pull up a chair and a steaming cup of whatever you like and join me...

ENDA...Is It Time To Turn Up The Heat?

Employment non-discrimination is getting some much needed coverage this week...albeit for all the wrong reasons. President Obama is coming under fire for refusing to issue an executive order banning anyone contracting with the Federal Government from discriminating against any of their employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. To be honest, while the reports call it a "blow for advocates", I don't think anyone is surprised. If anyone feels echoes of the DADT repeal or the President's "evolution" on marriage equality that's because the same tactics and verbage are again being put in play. While this executive order would only affect the employees of government contractors, it would at least be a step in the right direction to a larger national law. Instead, the administration is claiming to put their efforts into a national ENDA policy by building a "coalition" of bipartisan support. In a recent White House response to the President's decision, Press Secretary Jay Carney articulated the Administrations viewpoint:

The President is dedicated to securing equal rights for all LGBT Americans.  And that is why he has long supported an inclusive employment non-discrimination act which would prohibit employers across the country from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  The President is committed to lasting and comprehensive non-discrimination protections, and we plan to pursue a number of strategies to attain that goal.  Our hope is these efforts will result in the passage of ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which is a legislative solution to LGBT employment discrimination.

And I would make the comparison here that pursuing that strategy, the passage of ENDA, is very similar to the approach the President took for the legislative repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Does all this sound familiar to you too? With the repeal of DADT, the President had it within his power to issue and executive order and instead, opted to build a similar bipartisan coalition and came under all the same criticism. But there's a problem with the Administrations version of events surrounding the repeal of DADT that may be key to understanding our role in helping pass ENDA and ensuring workplace protections for all LGBT Americans....and that is the role of outside pressure.

Civil Rights and Gay Rights March Together in the life of Bayard Rustin

"The only weapon we have is our bodies...and we need to put them in places so that wheels don't turn."...Bayard Rustin

There are some people in life who have helped me change how I think about being a gay person. Growing up as I did, in a home in which it was made crystal clear to me how wrong my parents, the church, and society as a whole looked at LGBT life as something sick and to be ashamed of. As a part of my journey to self acceptance, those messages had to be undone and one of the ways that was accomplished has been in the examples of great LGBT people who by their examples have rocked the way I thought about myself...and the world. One such person is Bayard Rustin.

I had known of Bayard...that he was an adviser to Martin Luther King Junior, an outspoken activist and organizer,...and gay. That alone was a revelation to me. Most people think of Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the great leaders of our time for his work in helping drive forward the civil rights movement. It had hit me like a bomb then, to discover that standing by his side was a gay man...one who not only worked along side him, but advised him. The questions I had were endless. How out was Rustin to MLK and the rest of the leaders of the movement? What was his life like? Did he have relationships or was his a life marked with solitude? and finally....why had I never heard this before?

Again, my ideas about who we are as gay men and women had been changed and I needed to know more. Fortunately, because it was recently the anniversary of Rustin's 100th birthday there has been some talk about him and his life which led me to a documentary about his life....Brother Outsider, The Life Of Bayard Rustin. What I have learned about him not only answered all those questions I had and made me feel a personal connection to events that happened before my birth...they showed me and a singular individual, who was amazing all in his own right

Why Is MSNBC Still Hosting The Family Research Council?

Today's title says it all really....as a member of a Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group...why are Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, or anyone from the Family Research Council constantly asked to be on MSNBC and/or CNN to represent a fair minded or rational opposition to an LGBT issue when it has been proven time and time again that they are one of the chief exporters of lies and distortions about the gay community? Using little but their interpretation of religion and the very discredited junk science of Paul Cameron, they have testified before congress and been on countless cable TV news shows spreading the idea that allowing LGBT people anything at all is tantamount to the utter destruction of the country. Who made them boss of everything anyway?....no one, that's who...

However, my opinion on the matter carries less weight with those who might need to see the FRC for what it really is...an organisation who's sole job is to spread fear and hatred of gay, bisexual, and transgendered peoples then from those from the same faith communities that Tony and the FRC target. Oh no...there is no family research going on at the Family Research Council, it's all about stopping the gays....a fact that has been picked up on by a group called Faithful America who have made a thirty second long commercial asking MSNBC to stop promoting Tony and the FRC as anything other then what they are. But will the world see it?......no. because, naturally, MSNBC refused to air it.

And so I have chosen to share it here because I think it's an important topic to bring up and that, if this commercial wont make television...we can still spread it to all corners of the internet to have a real discussion about how we talk about LGBT issues in the media. check out the commercial after the jump and then I will add my two cents to the mix...

On Cynthia Nixon and Balancing The Kinsey Scale

We've all heard the same tired, worn-out "Being gay is a choice" arguments before. We have heard it from religion when they want to characterize being gay as sinful, we here it on television when those same religious viewpoints are used to reinforce political ones, and we here it from out parents when they are looking for something...or someone...to blame when we come out to them. After all, if it wasn't for our reckless choices or that person who "recruited" us into being gay we would all be straight. Right?....Right? Um........Anybody? I'm being absurd here but the notion that we woke up one day and decided to be gay...or worse...yielded to some form of temptation has led to the emotional and psychological torture of thousands of LGBT people.

Yet not everyone stands with both feel planted fully in the "gay" or "straight" camp. Each persons individual sexuality is a shade somewhere between those two polarities. Alfred Kinsey defined a scale numbered 1-6 with "1" being exclusively heterosexual and "6" being exclusively homosexual. Now...most of us fall somewhere along the length of this line with few of us being on the extreme ends. For myself, I would place myself at about a 5.5. And...as someone who fought his orientation tooth and nail, I see that as an inborn part of myself I could not change if I wanted too. Yet there are those who disagree...

Cynthia Nixon, who did an incredible job of standing up for marriage equality in New York has recently come under fire for comments made in a New York Times article in which she defines her sexuality as a choice. Nixon is currently engaged to be wed to her longtime girlfriend Christine Marinoni after a previous marriage to English professor Danny Mozes. This change is not so unusual, many of us come out later in life or perhaps we sit a little closer to the center of the Kinsey scale and have attractions to both sexes...as seems to be the case with Cynthia. there issue here is not whether or not Cynthia was being completely honest to her experience of her own sexuality...but in how her account of that experience gives ammo to those who claim that homosexuality is simply a behavior that can and should be changed. Nixon's comments to the NY Times leave a lot of room for debate and heated opinion:

Stolen Childhood

Welcome back everyone....

I know it's been a long time since I have written anything. But, that does not mean that it has been an uneventful beginning to the year. The kids are still off for Christmas vacation and my husband has taken off some time to help care for Baby Boy and the others...so our house is full and very busy. Additionally, I have not been so happy with the gay related news these days. It seems like it's all completely wrapped up in the Republican primaries and the insane viewpoints of it's candidates. I have to admit that I am sick of hearing about Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachman to the point that I am afraid to even log onto the internet anymore. They are on everywhere, all the dam time...and they seem intent on pushing each other over to prove who is the most "conservative(I.E. against the gays). Case in point...

Via Towleroad and reported by the Miami herald...Rick Santorum wants to be your president...and this is what he thinks of same-sex adoption and children's rights to a safe home:

Citing the work of one anti-poverty expert, Santorum said, "he found that even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids, were still better than no father at all to have in their childrens' lives."
Allowing gays to marry and raise children, Santorum added, amounts to "robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have right to. You may rationalize that that isn't true, but in your own life and in your own heart, you know it's true."

Really?...robbed?!...then I have a little story to tell about how Baby Boy came to be in our care this Christmas. Brace yourself and grab a tissue...it's going to be hard to hear...

The Cost Of Love...

O.K...I began this post yesterday when it was actually in the paper, but real life kept hauling me away from the computer and preventing me from switching into "blog mode". But here it goes again. While this blog is technically a "gay blog" the story I have chosen to share with all of you is not a "gay" story. Yet I felt it was a story that any LGBT person would resonate with...it is a story about sacrificing for love...and it touched my heart. So without further ado...lets give it one more try:

This morning....Yesterday I happened upon an article in my local paper that has touched my heart and I feel it is important to  share with all of you. During these holidays, we all need to be reminded that love is alive and can beat some pretty incredible odds and I think this one fits the bill. The article from The Press Democrat was about the passing of 87 year old Lillian Shizuko and her remarkable romance and marriage to John Berry. She, a Hawaiian born Japanese girl....Him a white American man...both of them find love together in a pre-World War II World. They were different races and from different cultures in a time that tolerated no blurring of the lines...what could go wrong?

Protect The Children

Isn't that how the mantra goes when the tide turns to recognizing equality for the LGBT community? No matter what the issue at hand might be, instead of making their stand on religious grounds, those who oppose acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual,and transgendered people twist the conversation around to one of protecting children. What really cheeses me off however, is that they are not really for protecting children at all. Few, if any, of the people who have criticized Jay and myself for raising children will ever open their home to a child in need of a family. Many would rather a child age out of the foster system never knowing a family, than see them raised by a loving same-sex family.

But the reality is that we DO have families and those children can be equally as harmed by the lack of legal recognition and protections as their parents are. A recent video from the Family Equality Council highlights this issue and shows how bans on same-sex marriage and attacks on gay rights can have a serious impact on the most vulnerable people of all....kids like mine. Check out the video after the jump and ask yourself who is really being protected by anti-gay laws?... because it's not children. I can guarantee you that.

NOM, The AFA, and Anti-Gay Orgs...Do We Still Care?

This post is to settle somewhat of an argument between my husband and I who have a difference of opinion on whether or not it does any good to write about the doings of antigay groups like The National Organization for Marriage or characters like Tony Perkins and The American Family Association.....correction, what he actually said was that no one cares enough about them to read what they are up to.

Every day that goes by see's these groups, and the individuals that speak for them, slide into increasing disfavor. With DADT repealed, the potential likelihood of the return of marriage equality to California via the courts, and polls that are NOT in their favor, antigay groups are having to take a different stance in the public eye...the one of the victim. If they can't win the game of spinning public opinion into fearing that gays will destroy the nation by wanting to be a part of its institurions than they will fall back on creating the fear that gays want to attack and harm them and anyone who believes similarly.

An example of this fallback strategy is NOM's creation of a subgroup who's task it is to advocate for anyone who feels they have been targeted for violence or harrasement due to their belief that marriage is just for straight people and not for gays.  NOM's newly created Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance( not to be confused the the rebel alliance)  was so laughable...and it's charter do beyond the pale that I felt practically compelled to take it apart piece by piece. But...I was discouraged to do so on the basis that no one gives a rats behind about them. Which makes me ask the question...Is it true? Have they slid so far as to have faded into irrelevancy?....because personally, I think that's a mistake.