Over the past several months, EBONY has published two articles by veteran journalist Rod McCullom: “Making It Work: Black Same-Sex Couples Raising Kids in the South [PDF],” (October 2011) and, in a special Mother’s Day report, “She Calls Us Both ‘Mom’ [PDF]” (May 2012).

Both articles feature great family stories that are well worth a read, no matter your color.

(Mombian also gets a mention in the list of “Real-Life Resources for Moms” at the end of the May 2012 article. Thanks, Rod!)

Hockey trotted out an old argument against marriage equality: “We’ve got to aspire to give our children what I believe to be the very best circumstances, and that’s to have a mother and a father”—while also stating, “I don’t believe we necessarily make better parents because we’re male and female” and “I’m not saying gay parents are any lesser parents.”

Wong, who had a daughter last fall with partner Sophie Allouache, responded to these contradictory statements calmly and logically, ending with the quiet and firm assertion, “I know what my family is worth.”

(Bonus fun fact: Rep. Hockey in 2010 appeared on Network 10′s Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation game show “wearing a crown, waving a magic wand and wrapping himself in a tutu, like a giant Tinkerbell,” as Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan put it. Methinks he should have a less rigid view of gender roles.)

Pros:

• It’s the first fiction series on television to focus on gay parents. ABC’s Modern Family includes two gay dads, but they form only one storyline among those of an ensemble cast.
• With Glee’s Ryan Murphy, Dante Di Loreto, and Allison Adler (a lesbian mom!) at the helm, the show has a good chance of being one of the most gay-positive shows on television.
• It’s good to see gay families on TV who have created their families in different ways. The New Normal shows a couple who used a surrogate; Modern Family shows two gay dads who adopted internationally. (The New Normal contrasts itself somewhat snarkily with ABC’s Modern Family by using the tag line, “The Post-Modern Family,” but I assume that’s just a jab at a competitor, and not any real assertion that surrogate-created families are better than adoptive ones.)
• It looks like the surrogate will be an ongoing part of the men’s and their child’s lives, one of the first times we’ve seen a donor or birth parent involved in a continuing way with a same-sex couple from the start. (On Glee, character Rachel Berry reconnected with her birth mother only later in life.) That’s a reality for many families today, and good to see.
• The surrogate already has an eight-year-old daughter, a nice twist, and another way they can explore the many branches and relationships in today’s families.

Cons and concerns:

• Do we really need another show featuring an upper-middle class, white, same-sex couple (Modern Family; The Kids Are All Right; The L Word)? Data shows that Black and Latin@ same-sex couples are twice as likely as white ones to be raising children, and more likely to be struggling economically. No, television doesn’t always have to reflect reality (in fact, I think there’s too much reality TV), but there’s also something to be said for variety, especially if it highlights a social truth.
• Based on the trailer, the surrogate is from a lower socioeconomic class than the men. The writers had better be sensitive to issues of class and how it plays into women’s reproductive choices, as well as to issues of sexual orientation.
• If the writers use the same “out-diversifying in order to get into prestigious nursery school” plotline used by The L Word and Modern Family, I will have conniptions.
• I’m guessing actors from Glee are likely to guest star. (NeNe Leakes (Glee’s Coach Roz Washington) will be a The New Normal regular, as an assistant to one of the dads.) I’ll put in a request for Dot Jones (Coach Beiste), perhaps as a quirky babysitter. (On television, is there any other kind?)
• Can a sitcom about lesbian moms be far behind (even on another network)? What plotlines and/or actors would you want to see in such a show? (I’m thinking real-life lesbian mom Wanda Sykes, among others, would be awesome.)

Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy

Looks like President Obama’s statement in support of marriage equality is already having an effect. His campaign has updated an earlier blog post and now refers to two lesbian moms as “married.”

Remember the photo of First Lady Michelle Obama with lesbian mom Andrea Smith and her son from the White House photostream that I mentioned a few weeks ago? The Obama campaign also used the photo on its Web site on April 1, prior to the President’s marriage equality announcement on May 9. It said, “Logan’s moms Andrea and Nadine are strong supporters of President Obama,” but did not refer to Andrea (executive director of Green Florida) and her wife Nadine Smith  (executive director of Equality Florida) as married.

Now it does. The campaign has updated its post, which now reads, “Logan’s moms Andrea and Nadine, who were married in 2009 in Vermont, are strong supporters of President Obama [my emphasis].”

That still doesn’t mean any laws have changed or the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has been repealed. But language is power, and we’ve just gotten a little more of it.

That’s right. In California—California, which, Prop 8 aside, ranks pretty high in terms of LGBT equality—same-sex couples using a known donor cannot access some of the most effective and least expensive fertility services.

Assembly Bill 2356, which will come up for a vote on the Assembly floor sometime in the next two weeks, could change that. The bill, sponsored by Equality California, “will ensure that same-sex couples can access fertility services on the same terms as other committed couples and put the joy of having a child within the reach of all loving families.”

Chino and Maya tell their story in the video below. Visit Equality California to find out how to help spread the word, including sending a letter to your Assembly member (if you live in California).

Caitlin Ryan

I don’t need to tell most readers that LGBT youth are at a higher risk than their non-LGBT peers for attempting suicide. Until today, however, no “Best Practices” have been identified or designated to help reduce vulnerability and risk among LGBT children, youth, or adults. That has now changed.

The national Best Practices Registry for Suicide Prevention, coordinated by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has designated a multi-lingual, multi-cultural series of family education booklets from the Family Acceptance Project (FAP) at San Francisco State University as the first “Best Practice” resources for suicide prevention for LGBT youth and young adults.

The booklets—”Supportive Families, Healthy Children: Helping Families Support their LGBT Children”— were developed after extensive research and direct feedback from families, LGBT youth, and service providers. They offer non-judgmental, research-based guidance, using personal stories, “to help ethnically and religiously diverse families understand how specific reactions to their children’s LGBT identity both contribute to and protect against risk for suicide and related health problems,” according to a press release. They are available in specific cultural versions in English, Spanish, and Chinese.

Dr. Ryan and her team were the first to put research findings behind what may seem obvious to many of us: LGBT youth whose families are accepting of their LGBT identities are more likely to become happy, healthy adults, and less likely to have depression, suicide risk, substance abuse, and similar problems.

Ryan explains, “Our research shows that common rejecting behaviors such as trying to prevent LGBT youth from learning about their identity, not allowing them to have gay friends or not letting them participate in an LGBT youth group are related to a nine-times greater likelihood of attempted suicide.”

Ryan has also shown the lingering effects of childhood bullying and the positive effects of gay-straight alliance clubs.

The FAP is as much about intervention, education and policy as it is about research, however. Greater Boston PFLAG President Stan Griffith, whose chapters have used FAP’s approach and materials since 2007, calls the new booklets “an indispensable part of every individual or group conversation with parents and caregivers and with professionals who provide counseling, health and other services to children, youth and families.”

“Supportive Families, Healthy Children” is available for download on the FAP Web site. Printed copies are also available, and lower literacy and faith-based versions are in development. FAP provides on-site training on using all of their resources and tools. Contact fap@sfsu.edu for more information.

Fran and Anna Simon, the moms in the video, live in Colorado and have been helping lead the fight to enact the state’s civil union bill. You can read more about them in this Denver Post article. Unfortunately, the bill was killed in committee last night, despite testimony from the Simons and others.

As Fran told me, though, “We will continue to fight.  It’s not a matter of if we will achieve equality for our families, just a matter of when.”

Zach Wahls (Photo credit: In the Life Media)

I’m very excited to invite you to an online forum for LGBT parents and their children this Wednesday, May 16th, at 2:30pm ET, hosted by In the Life Media. They’ve asked me to join Zach Wahls, whose speech about marriage equality went viral on YouTube; Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida (and mom of the adorable baby smiling at Michelle Obama); and Dr. Abbie Goldberg, assistant professor of psychology at Clark University and author of Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children. It should be a great discussion!

Please join us and share your comments and questions!

To participate, visit the forum page on the In the Life Web site, where you can also set up an e-mail reminder in advance so you don’t forget.

In the Life has also created the new Web short video “My Two Moms,” featuring Zach discussing his experience as a child of two moms, how he’s adjusting to life in the spotlight, and his new book by the same name. View the whole thing below. (For more on Zach’s book, see my review; please note I did the review before I was asked to do the chat, and I don’t know Zach personally.)

In the Life Media produces the two-time Emmy-nominated series, In the Life, the first—and  the only—LGBT newsmagazine on public television.

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.

Photo credit: Jebulon

Happy Mothers’ Day or Mother’s Day to all of the moms out there! We may come to motherhood in different ways, and approach it in different manners, but we are all united by a love of our children.

Here are a few additional posts from round and about that speak to the spirit of the holiday:

• Jaime Jenett, whose post was my Post of the Week last week, has has a piece at The Frisky in which she shares her perspective about being a lesbian mom on Mother’s Day. Also waffles.
• David Sarasohn of The Oregonian writes about lesbian moms and “the many ways of motherhood.” And waffles.
• My own Mother’s Day column from last year, “Waffles and Roller Coasters,” still reflects my thoughts on the holiday.
• Moving on from waffle-themed posts, Darby Hickey at HuffPo writes of her own mom, being a transgender mom and a godmother, “mommas defined by their nurturing rather than a title on a birth certificate,” and “the mother in all of us.”
• HuffPo Gay Voices asked its readers and bloggers to submit photos and anecdotes about their moms. (My favorite is number five, by lesbian mom Lisa Lay, who came out three years ago after 27 years of marriage and five children. She writes not only of her mom, but of a woman who was a mother figure to her and her partner and knew, as her own parents did not, of her lesbian identity.)
• On a more political note, Kenji Yoshino of the New York Times writes, “For Obama, It’s About the Children.” I love the piece because it speaks to themes I’ve written about myself: President Obama’s use of same-sex parents and our kids to show why he now supports marriage equality, and the reclaiming of the “best interests of the children” argument from the right wing, as a recent ad in North Carolina did.
• On a non-LGBT-specific note, the International Museum of Women has launched “Mama’s Work,” an online gallery “about how women around the world juggle work and family life.” (Via Bunchland.)
• And finally, don’t forget that halfway between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, on June 1, is the 7th Annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day! Post at your blog and submit the link here to participate.

• J.C. Penney is featuring lesbian moms Wendi and Maggie and their daughters, along with Wendi’s mother, in their May catalog. Double kudos to the store for doing this despite coming under fire from right-wing group “One Million Moms” after selecting Ellen DeGeneres to be their spokesperson.
• Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz has an awesome essay, “All the ways that we are queer mamas of color,” at Strong Families’ equally awesome “Mama’s Day Our Way“ blog series. Make sure also to check out their diverse, inclusive, and socially just Mama’s Day e-cards.
• A bevy of celebrities have joined GLAAD in asking the Boy Scouts to adopt more inclusive policies, and to reinstate Jennifer Tyrrell, whom the Scouts ejected as den leader of her son’s den because she is a lesbian. You, too, can join GLAAD in sending a message to the Boy Scouts for Mother’s Day.
• A Colorado court said lesbian mom Wendy Alfredsen must be given access to the daughter she had raised for several years with her ex, Lena Alfredson. Each mom had adopted one of two biological sisters (state law did not allow them to adopt jointly) before they broke up. Lena then took her legal daughter and went to Norway, whereupon Wendy filed a suit using a new state law that allows non-biological parents to file paternity suits. LGBT family lawyer Nancy Polikoff says that although the use of “paternity” in reference to a woman is novel, the decision was actually expected, given previous applications of the law in cases involving opposite-sex parents.
• While I usually focus on lesbian moms, I thought this story of a straight, evangelical mom’s journey to acceptance of her lesbian daughter, as told in her new book Above All Things, was worth a Mothers’ Day mention.

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