Family Equality Council Blog

I snapped a few days ago and came close to throwing something at the TV.

Mainstream America has been on the path towards becoming more accepting of LGBT people. A majority of Americans are against discrimination towards gays in the workplace and also in housing. They aren’t fighting domestic partnership benefits. They get the need for hate crimes legislation. They are even getting over their fear of dropping soap in military showers.

The two areas that remain sticking points are same-sex marriage and LGBT parenting. Fortunately the acceptance trends even on these two issues are improving. Still the thought of gays marrying and raising kids is a tall hurdle for many heterosexual Americans. I don’t know what their minds conjure up about what we do as married couples or how we parent our children but these to issues remain barriers nevertheless.

Straight America would be better served by becoming more concerned with its catastrophic divorce rate and the collapse of the American family. With nearly fifty percent of straight marriages ending in divorce the percentage of kids growing up in June and Ward Cleaver “Leave It To Beaver” TV show style homes is definitely in the minority. Many kids today are raised by single parents, parents with blended families and for far too many in foster care. And yet the thought of children being raised by a committed LGBT parent or couple is disconcerting. Never mind that most gay people who chose to raise kids have made a strong commitment to do so. Most of our kids aren’t conceived because of condom failure in the backseat of a car. If we are raising kids alone because of the break-up of a mixed orientation marriage we most likely faced challenges in obtaining and/or maintain custody.

Far too few American parents are involved enough in their kids’ lives. What pushed me to snap a few days ago was viewing a new TV ad for a Panasonic wide-screen HDTV that recently began airing. In the spot a mom was trying to find time to spend with her three kids all of whom had overly planned hectic schedules. Two of the kids were too busy to fit mom in. The third, an elementary school student said that she would somehow find 15 minutes to pencil mom in during the afternoon by shuffling her overbooked schedule. The announcer chimed in suggesting that the family buy a new Panasonic HDTV so that they could spend more quality family time together. That is when I lost it! Has quality time for families sunken to the point that it is considered sitting in front of the TV for an hour or two and not talking to each other?

As some of you know, I have been substitute teaching since January in inner city public schools here in Dallas. The experience has been eye opening and alarming. I have taught students in grades K-12 and have spoken with students, teachers and administrators. I am deeply concerned with the education that our kids are not receiving and it isn’t the fault of the teachers or administrators are they are doing their best. A new study released in April showed that on average only 50% of high school students are graduating from public schools systems in the 50 largest cities in the U.S.

Aside from the problems with our educational system, which Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” is exacerbating, I have strong concerns with the lack of parental involvement in their kids’ lives. Far too many parents are so busy that they don’t connect with their kids. In reality, they are not parenting and their kids are suffering badly because of it!

(To Be Continued in PART 2)

Which book received the most objections from parents in 2007? A story of violence, war and/or bloodshed? No. It was none other than And Tango Makes Three - the story of a penguin family headed by two dads.

The complaints (of which there were 420) were of parents worrying that children reading the book would think “homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable.” And we wonder why it’s so hard for children to come out to their parents? We wonder why so many gay youth take their own lives?

On a more uplifting note, it’s worth mentioning that the number of complaints dropped from 546 in 2006. At least we’re moving in the right direction!

To read the full article, click here.

Cuatro meses atrás me uní al equipo del Concilio para la Igualdad de la Familia. Cuando recibí la llamada original sobre la posición de Gerente de Programas para las familias de color, inmediatamente comencé a pensar en formas en las cuales este proyecto podría ayudar a las situaciones de familias como la mía. Mi esposa y yo somos comadres de un niño de 10 años hijo de mi mejor amiga. Para mi segunda entrevista me pidieron que sugiriera un nombre para el programa. ¿Nombre? ¿Un nombre que incluyera a todos? Después de mucho pensar, de llamar a mis amistades y crear lista, tras lista,  se me ocurrió! Mientras que tarareaba, me di cuenta de que la música es la cosa que nos une a todas/os. Fue entonces que se me vino a la mente “ARMONIA”. Si todos colaboramos tendremos armonía.  Armonía nos permite enaltecer nuestras voces, la armonía le da sentido a nuestra causa; la armonía llena nuestros sentidos de igualdad. El Proyecto Armonía tiene como objetivo incrementar nuestras voces como familias LGBTQ cuales están consistidas por madres/padres de color o madres/padres de descendencia mixta. Queremos establecer programas que no solo ayuden a madres/padres como yo, con familias no-tradicionales, pero también madres/padres de diferentes clases, clases étnicas, razas, y antecedentes culturales. El Proyecto activamente trae a colación asuntos relacionados a nuestras opresiones aisladas y combinadas, llevándonos a retarnos  a nosotros mismos y al movimiento LGBTQ en general sobre nuestras acciones y presunciones. Queremos plantear y promover una agenda antiopresiva, con, por y para nuestras/os mas de 40,000 miembras/os, colaboradores y programas. Finalmente, promoveremos la igualdad racial y oportunidades económicas que incluyen, pero que no están limitadas al, acceso a servicios, el mantenimiento de la herencia cultural en adopciones de herencia mixta, la construcción de comunidades para aquellas/os en familias mixtas y el apoyo y trabajo colectivo con otras organizaciones locales, estatales y nacionales para así darle solución a nuestras opresiones combinadas. En las próximas semanas y meses verán los resultados iniciales de nuestro proyecto de investigación, empezaran a ver material en español en la sección del Proyecto Armonía de nuestro portal electrónico y escucharan sobre las diferentes maneras en las cuales se pueden integrar al proyecto. Si tienen comentarios, preguntas o desean compartir recursos para la página mándenmelos a harmony@familyequality.org.

Family Equality Council is thrilled to announce the hiring of Kara Suffredini, Esq. as Public Policy Director.  In this role, Kara will focus on advancing federal, state and local laws and policies that best protect and support LGBT-headed families.  Kara will also take a leading role in training LGBT parents across the country on how they can most effectively lobby for the family protections that they deserve.

“We are thrilled to have Kara join Family Equality Council,” said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council.  “Kara’s skills and expertise in legislative law and policy are well-known throughout the LGBT movement.  Having followed her work advancing policies that support LGBT people and families, I couldn’t think of a better attorney and organizer to have join our team.”

Kara comes to Family Equality Council with over a decade of experience working on LGBT policy and legislation. She has written and lectured extensively on LGBT family policy issues, including parenting and relationship recognition, safe schools, and workplace equality, and has trained hundreds of activists and elected officials on legislative drafting, grassroots organizing, lobbying, and community building for LGBT equality.

“I am very excited to join Family Equality Council at a time when family issues such as relationship recognition and adoption are very much at the fore of the fight for LGBT equality,” said Kara Suffredini, Esq. “Family Equality Council and its supporters continue to play a leading role in defeating anti-LGBT legislation and advancing laws and policies that support our families and our community.  I am pleased to be joining an organization that shares a deep commitment to full equality under the law.”

Kara has most recently served as the State Legislative Director at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C., where she worked with state and local activists, elected officials, and corporations to draft and pass hundreds of pro-LGBT laws and policies as well as to defeat anti-LGBT measures.  Kara served as a member of the board of directors of the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association for ten years, during a time of tremendous programmatic and financial growth for the organization, serving as chair in 2004. She currently serves as vice chair of the Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity of the American Bar Association Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and as an advisor to the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.

Kara started her legal career as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Joette Katz on the Connecticut Supreme Court and, thereafter, practiced as a litigation and appellate associate at Updike, Kelly, and Spellacy, P.C. in New Haven, Connecticut.
She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the Boston College Law School and recently served as a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School as part of a program that recognizes exemplary public interest lawyers. She is admitted to practice in her home state of California, as well as Connecticut and the District of Columbia.  Kara will relocate to Boston and will begin her responsibilities at Family Equality Council on May 12, 2008.

The ACLU is defending two gay students who were outed by their high school principal. The principal wanted to know the names of students who were couples - heterosexual and homosexual - because she was concerned about public displays of affection.

She posted the entire list of students in public, which outed two boys who were attempting to keep their sexuality private. All student relationships were revealed to other students, teachers and their parents.

Andrew and Nicholas had just started dating.

According to MyEyewitnessNews.com:

“Nicholas says his teachers and other students treat him differently as a result of Principal Beasley’s decision and that he and Andrew have both had to deal with verbal assaults. Nicholas was also not allowed to go on a trip to New Orleans to help rebuild homes because, as one of his teacher’s explained, he would “embarrass” the school by engaging in gay affection.

‘I really feel that my personal privacy was invaded,’ Nicholas says. ‘I mean, Principal Beasley called my mother and outed me to my mother!’”

Furthermore, reporter Joyce Peterson writes, “The ACLU wants the school district to create new policies that would prevent these types of acts from happening again. The group is also asking for compensation for Andrew and Nicholas and for an apology from the principal.”

ACLU attorney Christine Sun says, “Our first reaction was wow, this is unbelievable that a principal has gone this far. The constitution protects all of us from the government intruding in our private lives when there isn’t a reason to do that. This was morally and legally wrong.”

Gay rights advocates plan to attend the next Memphis School Board meeting.

[Crossposted at ProudParenting.com]

I don’t usually respond to drivel from the ultra-right, but this one got to me. The Washington Times, in an article titled “Growing Up Confused,” reported Sunday on the memoir “Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting,” by Dawn Stefanowicz. Stefanowicz is the daughter of a gay father who was married to her mother. She says that because of her father’s sexual orientation, she “experienced insecurity, depression, anxiousness, sleeplessness and sexuality confusion, and her psychological well-being and peer relationships were affected.”

Stefanowicz has been speaking up for the ultra-right for several years now. The book itself reads like a text for the Family Research Council, whose vice president for policy, Peter Sprigg says “It’s a very moving, brutally honest, first-person account of what it is like to grow up with a homosexual parent.” Perhaps one of them, but let’s not overgeneralize here.

The Washington Times relates: Continue Reading »

I receive regular updates about safe schools work and issues around the country from the wonderfully active Safe Schools Coalition. A big THANK YOU to them for the tireless and largely volunteer efforts!

Through a recent update, I found out about a new study out of Millersville University that highlights the workplace experiences of LGBT educators nationwide. The researchers’ findings were presented at the March 25, 2008 Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, held in New York City.

Unsurprisingly the study parallels the findings of Involved, Invisible, Ignored: The Experiences of LGBT Parents and Their Children in Our Nation’s K-12 Schools, co-produced by Family Equality Council, GLSEN and COLAGE and released this year.

From the summary of the educators’ study:

Continue Reading »

Our grandson Cameron Grant Selig was born Saturday night at 10:27 PM (Atlantic Time) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mom and grandson are both healthy. Cameron weighed in at 7 lbs. 13 oz. And was 20 inches long. What an amazing experience for us! Thanks to digital video and digit camera and trusted Macs on both ends Nathaniel was easily able to share the excitement with us via the Internet which almost made up for the distance of nearly 2,500 miles separating us.

It is hard to put into words how I feel. It is different when Nathaniel came into the world thirty years ago. Then I was twenty-five and newly married to his mom. I had the awesome responsibility of a new life thrust into my hands with no training and experience in parenting other than the values that my parents had instilled in my by their example. Fortunately I had wonderful parents who were always there for me and understood the meaning of unconditional love so unlike far too many people I had outstanding role models. How was I going to deal with the many challenges of parenthood? How would he turn out? How would I be as a parent? I am sure that each of you has felt similar moments of panic from time to time.

With Cameron’s arrival I have none of those fears. I know that Nathaniel and Doris will be great parents and that Cameron will receive excellent care and guidance. In fact, I am sure that I have much more faith in Nathaniel and Doris than they do at this moment. Sure, I have concerns about the world that Cameron will inherit with all the problems of war and global warming and limited resources. But mainly Rodolfo and I will get to enjoy spending time with Cameron and spoiling him. That’s what being a grandparent is all about.

I truly detest being so far away. Rodolfo and I will be faced with seven hours of air travel in each direction when we visit Nathaniel, Doris and Cameron. But we look forward to many such trips in our future and we look forward to nurturing yet another generation that embraces the world’s diversity rather than shuns it.

It is a bitter-sweet farewell as our flock of Spring interns leave the Family Equality Council nest! We will miss them dearly, but they will undoubtedly soar to great heights. One of our interns, Susana, wished to write a good bye to all our blog friends:

To Family Equality Council, our families and our friends:

My search for a spring internship placement began late last October as a simple effort to secure the 8 credits worth of “independent learning” that my academic transcript was lacking. I was looking forward to graduating in May and, therefore, was more than willing to jump through the few final hoops that stood between me and my bachelor’s degree. It never occurred to me that my last leaps and bounds through the undergraduate system would have such an immediate and lasting impact on my understanding of self and the world I live in.

The objective of this semester-long internship, as outlined by my school, was to provide me with career oriented work experience that would help to inform the choices I would undoubtedly be forced to make upon entering the “real world.” For someone like me who has always been more comfortable going with the flow than considering the shape of her future, I was at a loss for inspiration. What did I want to do with the rest of my life? Well, as an English major, interning at a publishing house seemed like a logical choice – the problem was that it didn’t necessarily peak my interest. I loved to read, I loved to write, and editing work had, after four years of relentless undergraduate paper writing, become second nature to me. No doubt a position in the publishing field would be a good skill-based fit, but would my heart be in it? Would I feel good about the work I was doing? Would it impact my life in a positive way? Would it make a difference? I wasn’t convinced.

Ultimately I decided to search for an internship in the non-profit business sphere, hoping to find a position within an organization whose work I felt strongly about. After bookmarking a number of postings on Idealist.org, my saving grace during the whole “search and apply” process, I submitted applications to the three organizations whose work I felt a personal connection to. Family Equality Council was one of those organizations.

To make a long story short (the whole process was actually relatively brief, I just happened to be on pins and needles the entire time – crossing my fingers and hoping that everything would fall into its rightful place), I was offered the position of Program & Education Intern within Family Equality Council. My groggy, Dayquil fueled phone interview had clearly left a better impression than I thought (when asked to describe myself in three words, I made the honest but not-so-desirable choice of identifying myself as “quirky.” What well-learned English major couldn’t deliver simple terms like “intelligent,” “dedicated” and “passionate” when given the opportunity to sell themselves professionally? I was mortified!), my orientation date was scheduled, and I happily became an official member of the Family Equality Council team.

Having been raised in a family that celebrated bare feet, tie-dye, peace and love, the values of equality and acceptance were staples of my liberal childhood upbringing. Today, looking back on my three months working as a member of the Family Equality Team, I am proud to say that those values have only been strengthened. I am no longer a simple supporter of LGBTQ rights; I am an ally – still soft-spoken but now OUTSpoken, still aware but now empowered and informed. I have received an incredible education beyond the academic bounds of my college campus and have learned that my voice is as valuable as any other in the greater fight for family equality.

Jenn, Nina, Dustin, Ariana, Julia, Sara, Daniel, Lisbeth, David, Kent, Jen, friends and families: I can’t tell you how much your stories, insight, instruction and support have meant to me. You have all played an intricate part in making this experience such a positive one. Thank you!

With lots of love (and a newfound fondness for cramped & dimply lit office space),

Susanna

If you know of anyone who may be interested in interning at Family Equality Council, bookmark http://www.familyequality.org/about/joinourteam.html and stay tuned for future internship opportunities.  

The Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson is no stranger to the Family Equality Council. In fact, he’s a fantastic supporter of our work and was honored at our National Awards Dinner in October of 2006.

Bishop Robinson is best known for being the first openly gay, noncelibate priest to be ordained in the historical episcopate. He’s also a father.

Earlier this week, Bishop Robinson announced that he’ll be entering a civil union with his partner of 20 years, Mark. On behalf of Family Equality Council, congratulations to Bishop Robinson and his family.

Bishop Robinson was asked about his civil union at a question and answer session. Jokingly, he replied, “I always wanted to be a June bride.” Within hours, the comment was taken out of context and pushed through the conservative blogosphere. According to Bishop Robinson, “What I should have said was something like this: ‘Gay and lesbian people grow up with the same hopes that other people do - that they’ll be able to celebrate their love for one another with family and friends gathered around, pledging their support for the faithful, monogamous, lifelong-intentioned, holy vows they’ve just taken. I, too, have always longed for such a day.’”

Of course, that doesn’t make for a sensational sound bite.

To read Bishop Robinson’s full op-ed, click here.