Two weeks ago, a Miami-Dade judge declared Florida’s anti-gay adoption law unconstitutional and allowed Vanessa Alenier to adopt the one-year-old she and her partner Melanie Leon have been fostering.

The ultra-conservative Orlando’s Florida Family Policy Council (FPC) sent out an alert to its members last week, describing the ruling. It included a photo of a lesbian couple sporting mullets the likes of which I haven’t seen for many years. Neither woman is smiling, and I doubt most people would consider it a flattering photo.

The couple in the picture, however, is not Alenier and Leon. Orlando Sentinel writer Scott Maxwell rightly calls the Family Policy Council to task for this, and offers up a strong endorsement for allowing loving same-sex couples to adopt.

He calls the mulleted couple “abnormal-looking,” though, and says: “The couple look so odd (you literally can’t tell whether they are male or female) that one might wonder how any judge could place a young child with such a disturbing-looking duo.”

Making lesbians look strange and scary seems to have been the FPC’s intent, and Maxwell is right to point that out—but by equating oddity with the fact that you can’t tell their gender, he himself risks offending a good part of the LGBT community.

I’ll cut him some slack because it’s not entirely clear if he’s just trying to show what the FPC’s perspective likely was. Still, I am reminded of conversations I have with a straight friend (and general ally) every year in June, when he wonders why the Pride Parades always seem to feature the “weirder” members of our community: drag queens, leatherfolk, scantily clad young men, and the like. “Don’t they know they’re not helping the cause?” is his usual type of remark. “How are people ever going to accept them if they dress like that?”

Fact is, for every lesbian couple that looks “like J.Crew models,” as Maxwell describes the real Alenier and Leon, there is another that doesn’t. Some of us are overweight, or tattooed, or of ambiguous gender, or the victims of unfortunate haircuts. Just like straight people (though I like to think our tattoos are cooler).

The FPC’s attempt to distort the truth in order to promote unflattering lesbian stereotypes is reprehensible. Let’s use the opportunity, however, not only to chastise them, but also to remember the diversity in our community. We’re not just seeking equality for the pretty people.

Lori writes below of teen sexuality—an area in which I have no expertise as a parent. I’m grateful for hers.

I’ve marveled over the past few years as I grew my three beautiful, loving, delightful multi-racial adopted kids through their junior high years and then high school years, where one is gone and two are closing in on that mortarboard and tassel. Always knowing in my logical mind that sex and sexuality are part and parcel of parenting at this tumultuous age and there would be no denying it despite my desire at times curl into a fetal ball and wish it all away.

My reticence in this regard had to be overcome. Kids need to be told the hard truths over and over about the potential consequences of sex. A single misstep on their part could be the difference between a sexually transmitted disease for which there is yet no cure or an adjustment to their entire life’s plan if they end up parenting too early. And sadly, the same myths that were told in my day are still passed along as fact today.

Yet, it’s the other side of sex—the emotional side to that first sexual experience—that must be held up as something to give to themselves and their partner with love, respect and trust. But, it all unfolds for each of them uniquely, a passage through which there is no return and by which they will never be the same.

Some people have criticized me for my blunt talk with my kids about sex. Afraid that by merely mentioning it, I am encouraging it. But that is not true. Straight-talk only arms them with information. I’m sure most of us remember that regardless of what level of openness our parents discussed sex, it is a very, very rare parent who knows when their child does have sex the first time. The decision to become sexually active will always ultimately be theirs alone.

My second son received something in his stocking this Christmas because a mother’s Spidey Senses tingle when there are covert signs that something is brewing and if not imminent, potentially on the horizon. It was a pack of condoms. Not new in the house, they have been housed in various strategic locations for some time as part of some previous conversation. He quietly and unobtrusively slid them back into his stocking and said nothing, but the message from me to him was clear. A few days later we had another talk. One which he was quick to remind me we’d had many times before and one for which I reminded him I would be bringing up again and again as long as he is my child.

It happens overnight—they walk, learn to ride their bicycle, drive a car and before you know it they are on their own life’s adventure. I want all three of their lives to be as full and rich and healthy and long-lasting as they can be. A few words, spoken openly and with love might help make the difference.

Resources for talking to your teen about sex can be found here: Teen Sex

Lori Hahn is co-editor of the GLBT blog Our Big Gayborhood and writes about parenting and living life as a lesbian at Hahn at Home.

My deepest condolences to Brendan’s family, who loved him unconditionally.

• Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told a Senate committee he is in favor of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said they have appointed a high-level working group to report, by the end of the year, on how the military can implement such a change if Congress repeals the law.
• President Barack Obama used his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, run by fundamentalist group The Fellowship, to denounce the proposed “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” being considered in Uganda.
• The U.S. Tax Court ruled in favor of GLAD client Rhiannon O’Donnabhain, stating for the first time that treatment for gender identity disorder qualifies as medical care under the Internal Revenue Code, and is therefore deductible.
• After the Hawaii House voted last Friday to postpone a vote on civil unions indefinitely, Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii said they will file a lawsuit alleging that the state is violating the equal protection rights of same-sex couples by not enacting civil unions.
• The Kansas Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee endorsed a bill to prohibit discrimination in Kansas based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Maryland lawmakers rejected an effort to prohibit the state from recognizing legal marriages of same-sex couples from other jurisdictions. That doesn’t mean the state will recognize such marriages, only that there will not be a law explicitly stating that they won’t. Sigh.
• In a tit-for-tat in Utah, lawmakers said they will not consider a law to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. They will instead spend the next year studying the issue. In exchange, opponents of such legislation will drop efforts to prevent local governments from passing similar laws this legislative session.
• The Washington, D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics ruled that the city cannot have a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage because it would violate the city’s Human Rights Act.

Around the world:

• Albania passed a law to outlaw homophobic discrimination but failed to include a measure to allow marriage for same-sex couples.
• A candidate for Brazil’s top military court caused an uproar among gay and human rights groups when he said that gay people should not be given command positions because they would not be obeyed by their soldiers in combat.

Unfortunately, the song, “And Mom and Kid,” isn’t yet available online. I give you instead “Roy G. Biv,” from their generally awesome album Here Comes Science. At least it has a rainbow theme. (It’s from their weekly podcast, so there’s a short spoken intro.)

This also serves in lieu of our vlog for the week, which won’t be happening because of unforeseen circumstances. Stay tuned for one next Thursday. (And please leave a comment if there’s a topic you’d like to hear us address!)

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.

• The Tennessee General Assembly’s House Education subcommittee referred to another subcommittee two bills that would ban the teaching of any sexuality other than heterosexuality. That means the bills’ fate is uncertain, although the head of the Tennessee Equality Project said he would have preferred a vote to defeat them.
• Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is getting all the headlines, but the Department of Defense is also reviewing a decision to give DOD teachers in same-sex relationships the same status and consideration as heterosexual married teachers when they request a job transfer together. The decision would also apply to opposite-sex couples in domestic partnerships.
• The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center is collaborating with Opportunities for Learning, a charter school with 34 locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties, to open a school where LGBTQ youth can learn in a harassment-free environment.
• Twenty-six members of Congress sent a letter to the Boy Scouts of America urging them to stop their anti-gay discrimination.

Law and Politics

• Nancy Polikoff reports on a custody case involving a former opposite-sex couple. The father was given custody by a lower court because the mother was now a lesbian. An appeals court overturned the ruling, and in the process overturned a 25-year-old ruling that had said the burden of proof was on a gay or lesbian parent to prove that the child would not be harmed by being exposed to their parent’s same-sex relationship.

Personal Stories

• The Advocate interviews Thomas Moore, husband to fellow transgender man Scott, who is not really the “second pregnant man” despite media reports stating so. Thomas discusses the prejudices and hurdles they’ve faced in finding a doctor, plus some universal issues of pregnancy and preparing for parenthood.

Entertainment Weekly writer Jennifer Armstrong says, “I salute ABC for not ruling out gay parents now that it has one set on the schedule with Modern Family.”

Hear, hear. Kudos also to them for showing an older child, not the media-typical infant, and for acknowledging that not all lesbian and gay families start as lesbian and gay families. The interconnections of families are varied and complex.

Lots of promise in this one. Let’s hope they deliver.

The Times Online reports:

For the next six months the new parents will take turns to alternately guard and feed the chick, with one protecting it from predators while the other goes out to sea to forage for food several hundred kilometres away. They swap the roles every two days.

I bet none of us can top that division of labor.

Anyone else feel like sending stuffed plush albatross dolls to those who say same-sex parenting is unnatural?

(Photo credit: Mila Zinkova. Distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2. Not the actual albatrosses described above.)

Want to know how to keep your disapproving Aunt Sally from ending up with your money? Read what Helen wrote the other day about The ABC’s of IRA Inheritance for LGBT’s.

Lori also notes that the site is home to a brand new podcast of Margo’s The Starr Ann Chronicles, “a kinda’ modern day lesbian cowgirl thing” narrated by women’s music legend Tret Fure.

Yee-ha! Check it out.